


Birthright

by sadfascist



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abuse, Action/Adventure, Angst, M/M, Prequel, Romance, Slavery, Tragedy, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:45:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 59,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6981166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadfascist/pseuds/sadfascist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naruto is the slave of the warlord Uchiha Itachi. Sasuke is a slum whore with a secret past. Together their forbidden love will change the world… COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clinging to Life

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complete. Enjoy!

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE THE FOUNDING OF KONOHA:

_The child cries._

_Everything is dark. He can’t breathe. Something is crushing him, a corpse. The corpse used to be his mother. He tries to push it away, but it’s so heavy._

_“There’s someone here,” a voice says. A man who speaks with the sound of iron._

_All at once there is light._

_The child blinks in confusion. The man picks him up out of the pile of corpses, cradles him. “Shhh,” whispers the man. The child stops crying._

_Other voices gather round them._

_“A little kid,” says one. “The reavers didn’t kill him.”_

_“No. Still clinging to life,” says the man._

_“What shall you do, Lord Itachi?”_

_The man stares into the child’s face. He smiles. “Keep him… as my slave…”_

\------

“Master,” Naruto whispered as he woke from his dream.

His master heard him. Naruto lay naked against his master’s chest from where he had fallen asleep the night before. Now the master brought his hand across to stroke his slaveboy’s cheek. Naruto shivered with the touch. His master’s hand continued down the boy’s face, over his neck and the small of his back and the curve of his ass. Naruto gasped, fully awake now. He opened his eyes, craned up his head to look into the master’s own.

“Master Itachi,” Naruto said. “I dreamed of you.”

The man pressed the boy to him. Naruto lunged into the embrace, his slender, lithe body sliding against his master’s chiseled frame. They kissed, lips tight over each other, wet tongues twisting, reaching. The slaveboy felt his master’s penis stiff and hot against his thigh. His arms clutched at the man’s back. “Master, please,” the boy gasped.

The master reached his hand between the slave’s legs and grabbed the boy’s tiny, hard dick. Naruto cried out in ecstasy and he almost came. The man wrenched the boy’s penis down with his hand, forcing the boy flat on his stomach against the bed. Naruto spread his legs obediently. Suddenly the master rammed into him, deep, taking him. 

The slaveboy screamed with pleasure. “Master!” he cried out. 

His master grunted. He pressed the boy down with his full weight, holding the slave’s wrists tight against the bed. Then the man began to thrust. The length of his master’s erect manhood filled the boy’s insides. Naruto cried out, his back arching desperately, twisting his hips in rhythm with the violent movement. His own tiny dick ground against the bed. Naruto cried out again and again. At last the master came, filling Naruto with his hot seed. The boy ejaculated right after. A final scream, then silence and sweat and heavy breaths. He could feel a trickle of semen leaking out of his asshole onto the silk bedsheets, mixing with the blood.

“Master,” Naruto gasped. 

“Good boy,” said Uchiha Itachi.        

The man slid out of his slave and went to the window. Naruto closed his eyes, panting, savoring the feeling of his master on top of him and in him. Maybe that night his master would take him again, or let the boy suck him off with his mouth. But now it was day, and there was no time for such male pleasures. _Master has taken off the face of a man_ , the boy thought, _and put on the mask of Warlord Itachi, tyrant of the Blood Country_. 

“Naruto, come here,” Itachi said.    
  
The boy went to him. “Yes, Master?”

Itachi stared out the open window, his long silver hair blowing in the sea breeze. “What do you see?”  

The boy followed his gaze. Below them stretched the great terraced roofs and pagodas of Sawara, capital of the Blood Country. An immense river cut through the heart of it, rushing into the sea, dotted nearly to the horizon with masted ships. “I see your land, Master, and your people. The greatest country in the world. Your enemies fall before you, they flee at the sound of your name. Soon they shall all be yours.”

“You flatter well, but insincerely,” his master said. “He is coming. Senju Hagoromo the Butcher returns at last.” 

“Rumors, drunken sailor-talk, piss from the mouth of traitors. Even if by some chance the tales were true, even if this self-styled Sage of Six Paths were to invade us with a fleet of warships, he must still cross the Endless Sea. The storms would scatter him to the four corners of the earth. Probably his ship is already sunk, and as we speak crabs are nibbling out his so-called magic eyes at the bottom of the sea.” 

“My spies claim he is a sorcerer, that he can harness the wind and waves.” 

“Rumors.”

The master was silent for a time. Then he said, “It had been thirteen years since I last saw him. That day I shall never forget. Senju Hagoromo murdered my family in a blaze of fire and fled across the sea to escape justice. He near killed me as well, but instead left me with this.”

Itachi touched a hand to his forehead. The skin of his upper face was burned off, charred and blackened. The scar was terrible to look at, but Naruto was used to it. _I wake up to it every morning, at least. It smells like a corpse and tastes like burnt worms, is that so bad?_

Below the scarred skin, his master’s green eyes were dark and intense. “Now the Butcher returns. I feel the truth of it in my bones. But I am ready for him. And when Hagoromo arrives at Sawara… I will burn him alive, as he did to my father and mother and sister and little brother. This time he won’t escape.”    

Itachi’s voice had a dangerous edge to it, a barely concealed rage. The slaveboy knew it would be bad to say the wrong thing. “I live to serve you, Master. Let me fight at your side.”  
      
The man cupped a hand around the boy’s cheek. “You shall, Naruto.” 

His gaze lingered over Naruto’s naked body, the boy’s lithe form and smooth face, his soft red lips and mop of golden hair, his wide blue glittering eyes like the sea. He was very beautiful, Naruto knew. That was why he was his master’s favorite. _I’m the only one who pleases him. I am by his side always_. But Master took his hand back and turned away to look out the window. 

“I have a mission for you,” his master said. “I was informed this morning. General Nara Kakashi is dead, murdered last night in bed by the Kitsune.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “The Kitsune? But… General Kakashi-dono lives in Sawara. Not far from the palace itself.”

“Indeed. So it seems the Kitsune has snuck into the city, despite all our precautions. This upstart little assassin… already he has killed a string of my most important officers. Senju Hagoromo is behind it all, without doubt. He sent this ninja to sabotage us before the invasion proper. Now the Kitsune is in Sawara. I cannot have him spreading chaos in my own capital city. Naruto, your mission is to find this Kitsune, this Demon Fox. And then kill him.” 

Naruto considered that. “We know nothing of the Kitsune’s true name or face. If he wished to hide, I’d have better luck fishing a needle out of the Endless Sea than finding him. But he won’t hide. He’ll attack again. As soon as tonight, maybe.”  

“You mean to intercept him. Where do you believe he will strike?”

“The Kitsune is like a kept beast who lives on rice. But once he’s tasted real meat, he can’t get enough of it, and every time he needs more than before. The Kitsune always attacks a bigger target than his last. General Kakashi-dono was the commander of the Army of the North. That leaves only a few people above him. You, Master. Minister Sawar-dono. Or, more likely, Lord Hiashi-dono, Admiral of the Scarlet Fleet. For the Kitsune, the Admiral must be like the best meal he’s never had. An irresistible target. It will be his undoing.” 

“Very well, Naruto.” His master bent down to his slave for one last kiss. The man was a good foot taller, so the boy had to crane his head up to meet his lips. The kiss was warm and quick. “You best not fail. Or I will be very displeased.”   
      
“I won’t, Master,” Naruto said.   

“Good boy,” said Uchiha Itachi.


	2. The Fox Hunt

The dead General’s bedsheets were dark red, stained with blood.

_The sheets have more blood in them than the people_ , Naruto thought, looking at the pale, ashen faces around him. Half of them seemed more dead than alive, though whether out of grief or fear the boy couldn’t say. _Maybe both._ Their lives had been bound to Nara Kakashi’s life, and Kakashi was dead, assassinated by the Kitsune. _If they are blamed, my master will have their heads._

They knew it, too. And did not like it when Naruto showed up to remind them.

“What are you doing here, slave?” one of the samurai growled.

“Samurai-dono,” Naruto said, bowing low. “I am here on behalf of my master, the Warlord Itachi. The Warlord is most disturbed by news of this tragic murder. He does not understand how it happened. May I ask who was guarding the General last night?”

“You—you—it was not—” the samurai sputtered. He had been one of Kakashi’s bodyguards, of course.

A woman giggled by the window. Decked in jewels and blushing like a maid, she was the only one in the room who did not look a ghost. No one would ever guess she was the dead General’s wife. “The Warlord has indulged you too much, little slave. You act more a lordling than a slaveboy.”

_And you act more a newlywed than a new-made widow. If you weren’t such an old hag, I’d suspect you of doing the deed yourself._ Naruto bit his tongue, with difficulty. “I apologize if my words are too rash, Lady Rin-dono. I live only to serve my master… and he is most displeased.”

The woman Misain Rin laughed and fanned herself with some sort of thing made of peacock feathers. “Is he now? Well, boy, it’s simple. My late husband sleeps alone. He’s such a dreadful snorer, no one dares be in the same room with him come sundown. Around midnight there was a scream from his bedchamber. I didn’t think much of it. He often screams at night, the poor thing. So I rolled over and went back to sleep. Later they woke me up again and told me the Demon Fox had driven a dagger through his heart.” Rin giggled again. 

“My master grieves for your loss,” Naruto said.

An old, wrinkled samurai coughed. “Yes, well… in any case, there were bodyguards posted at all the entrances and approaches into the mansion. The Kitsune killed two of the rooftop guards and then climbed in through the window of the bedchamber. He must have had inside knowledge, otherwise he could not have so easily located General-sama.”

Rin laughed. “Perhaps he followed the sound of my husband’s snores.”

“Eh, um… perhaps, Lady Rin-sama. As I was saying, General-sama heard the Kitsune at the last second and cried out, but it was too late. As we rushed into the room the Demon Fox was already fleeing. We gave chase across the city, but he escaped.”

“How?” Naruto asked.

“The Kitsune, he… he can use magic. I would not have believed it if I did not see it with mine own eyes.”

Naruto frowned. _Can the tales be true? Ninja from across the sea, masked fighters who make fire and wind with their hands?_ “Have you proof?”

“We had him cornered in one of the squares along Market Street. Or so we thought. The Kitsune was _there_ … ten of us will testify to it. I was close enough to see his green eyes, his silver hair. But when we attacked, he broke apart into a puff of smoke. One moment he was a man… the next he was smoke. And then he was gone.”

“A trick of the light,” Naruto said.  

“It was no trick, slaveboy.”                           

“So you say. Men are made of flesh and blood, not magic smoke. If you speak the truth, then the Demon Fox cannot be caught. So let us hope, samurai-dono, that you do not.” 

Naruto turned to go, but the old samurai called after him. “Please, slaveboy… you have influence with the Warlord. You know it was not our fault. I beg you… tell him. We will be in your debt.”

_You mean you’ll owe me your heads._ Naruto bowed, and his face was cold as ice. “Groveling does not become you, samurai-dono. I’ll do what I can.”

The boy left the General’s mansion in a foul mood. Outside, the streets of Sawara were jammed full with people. Naruto soon tired of pushing his way past them, and of their prying glances as well. It wasn’t everyday they saw a slave who dressed in silk robes, nor one who carried a sword. Slaves could not wield weapons, as a rule, but rules did not apply to the Warlord. _Master gave me this katana himself. I am his right arm, I am by his side always. I will not fail him._

Instead of staying in the streets, Naruto took to the rooftops. The wooden houses of Sawara were built very close, and their sloping tiled roofs hung down over the walls until they touched in the street. It was easy to jump from one roof to another, his sandaled feet soft and quick on the brick tiles. From this height the boy could see all the way to the harbor, choked with red-sailed warships, and to Sawara Bridge at the river’s mouth where traders hawked their wares, and even to the ruins of Uchiha Castle in the east, half-hidden by the mansions and temples of the High District. The roofs of Sawara were a world all their own, one rarely seen by men, of lost secrets and hidden passages. Naruto knew them all. _The Kitsune must have come this way as well, to get away._  

Suddenly the boy thought of a fox hunt he had gone on with his master, years ago, in the forests of the Ash Valleys far to the east. They had won the war a week before, in a great battle so bloody the ground turned red. After that there was nothing left to do but hunt. They loosed the bloodhounds and rode out into the forest together. It had been Naruto that had found the den of red-furred foxes, it had been him that notched his bow and made the first kill. The foxes ran, shrieking and yelping, but not fast enough. The old fell first, the young and strong the last, and by sundown they were all as dead as the rest of the Warlord’s enemies.

That night, when they returned to the Warlord’s tent, they made love in the usual way, kissing and touching and sucking. But as Naruto went to pleasure his master’s penis, the man stopped him. “It is not your mouth I want, boy,” he had said, “it is your maidenhood. You are old enough. It is time.” The man parted the boy’s legs, slid a hand up his thigh, into the crack of the boy’s ass. Naruto felt a long, thick finger push inside him, and then more fingers, so tight the boy felt as if they were ripping apart his gut. He cried out in pain. “Are you ready?” his master asked. “Yes,” the boy gasped. “Yes, _yes_. I live only for you. Let your will be done.” The master pressed his slaveboy down on his stomach. For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever the boy waited, his tiny body quivering with fear, with thrill and desire. And then his master entered him. Naruto screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed, and somewhere along the way the screams became something else, cries of sheer ecstasy that shook the world. He did not know it was over until he somehow found himself in Master Itachi’s arms. Then the boy looked down and stared at his master’s manhood, covered in seed and blood. _My blood_ , the boy knew, _my virgin blood_. His master had taken it all.

Naruto grew hard with the memory. He had been nine years old then, half a boy still, and unbearably naïve. Everything had seemed so simple, so clean: the war, the night in the tent, the fox hunt. Not like now. _Were I hunting real foxes now, instead of demon ones. Foxes do not murder generals, nor do they turn into smoke._

That was when Naruto heard the sound.

At first he thought it was the wind. But the wind whispered, it formed into words he could not quite make out, and he realized the wind was a human voice. The voice was singing.

The song was coming from somewhere near him. Naruto ran from rooftop to rooftop, and on the height of the great Shinjukame Temple which adjoined the residence of Lord Hyuuga Hiashi, he peered around a corner, and he saw the other boy.

The boy was sitting on the corner of a golden roof, leaning back against a stone sculpture of some many-armed god. His eyes were closed and it almost seemed like he was sleeping, except that his mouth moved, and music came out. Now Naruto could hear the words. It was a ballad, strange, haunting:

_As ye came from the holy land_  
_Of Shinjukame,_  
_Met you not with my true love_  
_By the way as you came?_

_How should I know your true love_  
_That have met many anon_  
_As I came from the holy land,_  
_That have come, that have gone?_

_Know my true love hath my heart_  
_And I have his own,_  
_But what conscience has love,_  
_Which is too young to know?_

The boy’s voice was raw, unpolished. Some of the notes were too low, others too high. Yet at the same time his voice had a sort of innocence about it, an unawareness of its own strength, which made it seem impossible to change anything without soiling it. It was beautiful, and, in some strange way, perfect.

Just then the boy turned and looked straight at Naruto.  

And Naruto saw the brand pressed into the boy’s forehead, a black twisted cross, the symbol of the Blood Country. A slaveseal. The brand given to every slave, to mark them as what they were. _He’s a slave, like me._

_No. Not like me._ Naruto’s master was the Warlord himself, while this slave… the boy’s clothes were rags, his face was caked with dust. His wild, scruffy hair was black as coal and likely as clean, and his body was so thin the bones had started to show. But pretty enough, Naruto had to admit, with large gleaming eyes like a cat’s, green as jade. _A slave whore, most like._ The city Pleasure District was crawling with them.

“Watcha’ looking at?” the boy asked. “Ain’t anyone tell you peepin’ is no manners? Unless you pay for it. And I bloody reckon you can’t afford me tonight.”

Naruto was a little taken aback. “Are you trying to proposition me?”

The boy laughed. “Ya mean, do I see the slaveseal on ya’ forehead? Well, I ain’t blind, it’s bigger than your nose. And I see your silk robes, and your shiny sword, too. Which means your master is so bloody rich even his slaves got coin enough to spend on someone to warm their bed, or am I wrong? But you’re outta luck, I ain’t a whore today. It’s my day off. I was singing, that’s all, when ya started your peepin’ at me.”

Naruto did not like the way the boy talked. _This whore dares far too much._ “You mistake me. I heard a noise, horrible and frightening, and feared some crime was taking place. At once I rushed to the rescue, only to find it was you sitting here, and the noise was coming from your mouth. My apologies.”

The boy laughed again, light and ringing. He jumped to his feet and walked toward Naruto. “That so? So ya didn’t like my song?”

_I did, but I’m not bloody well going to tell you that._ “A word of advice. Stick to your day job.”

“Haha. You’re funny. And pretty, too. Ya’d be more pretty if ya smiled, once in a bit, instead of looking like you swallowed a bug or somethin’.”

The boy was close enough now that Naruto could smell his breath. To his surprise, the whore was not as dirty as he seemed. His skin was white and smooth, his hair carefully washed. _A whore with no lice. Imagine that._ The two boys were almost the same height, the same age. _Why is he so close?_ Naruto wanted to move away, but he didn’t.

Instead he found himself asking, “Who are you?”

The boy grinned. “Who’m I? A sometime whore, a sometime singer, a sometime other things. And as for masters, I got plenty of ‘em, too. Master Zabuza’s the one you want.”

“Is that your pimp?”

“He prefers ta’ be styled the proprietor of the House of Brotherly Love. The finest erotic establishment this side of Sawara.” The boy’s jade eyes flashed, and when he smiled dimples formed at the corner of his mouth. “My name’s Sasuke, by the way. What’s yours? Do you even have a name?”

_Who doesn’t have a name?_ “If a whore can have one, why can’t I?” 

“Most slaves don’t, ya’know. They have names their masters give them… but not true names. Not their own names. Sasuke is my name.”

_Which means you made it up yourself, I expect._ “My name is Naruto, and my master is the Warlord Uchiha Itachi. You would do well to remember it.”

“Oh! The Warlord. So you’re _his_ slave.” Sasuke giggled, his eyes wide. “Please tell him I said hello.”

Naruto was dumbfounded. “That I shall not. You edge toward blasphemy, whore. Think before you speak, or you’ll soon lose your tongue.” _Master’s name means nothing to him, he dares to make a jape of it. I’ve wasted enough time here. I should be hunting the Kitsune._ He turned to go.

He was halfway across the temple roof when Sasuke called out after him. “I’ll see you again, Naruto.”

Naruto could not help but retort. “Really? I wonder at the occasion. Will you be invited to dinner at the imperial palace, or will I be joining you in the whorehouse of brotherly love?”

The other boy shrugged, grinning. “It’s a surprise. ‘Till then…”

Naruto jumped off the temple roof and did not look back. Behind him, Sasuke began to sing again.

_Won’t that damn whore shut up?_ Naruto tried to block it out, but even after he was far away somehow he could still hear the sound. He could still see the boy leaning against the stone statue, eyes closed, singing. That song. Why would he sing that song? _Why would a slave whore sing of love?_


	3. Kindness At All Cost

The nobles were halfway through the dinner when they started to get drunk. Very drunk. 

“ _Must_ that slaveboy be here?” the Admiral Hyuuga Hiashi demanded loudly, banging his chopsticks on the table. “Slaves I don’t mind, of course. Why, look at all these slaves serving our food and wine, whatever would we do without them? But _that_ slave. A slave with a sword. A _sword_! Only we of the high blood, we have the right to hold a sword. No, that’s not right, I say! I can’t stand it!”

 _I’d rather not be here myself_ , Naruto thought. He was only there on his master’s command, to protect them in case the Demon Fox attacked. And protection they needed. The Admiral was so drunk he wouldn’t know which end of Naruto’s sword to grasp if he gave it to him.

“Oh, Oji-san, don’t be mean to little Naruto,” the poet Namikaze Nyuka said. “He’s a good boy. Not like the first Naruto. Yes, and he’s a slave as well, I concede the point. What is it the monks say? We all have our vices.”

“Some might say Lord Hiashi-san has the vice of being related to you, Nyuka-kun,” Misain Rin said, giggling and waving her peacock feather fan. The other guests chuckled at the witticism. The Admiral’s nephew was known to spend money as fast as he could talk girls out of their clothes, which was to say, very.

Lord Misain Arashi, Rin’s father, did not want to let the subject drop. “I fear Lord Hiashi-san is not wrong. Can we really trust any slave with weapons? Especially with all this talk of the so-called Sage of Six Paths in the air. Even in the high city the rumors grow louder by the day. Otsutsuki Hagoromo is coming to free the slaves, they whisper. He is spreading liberty. He is bringing Kindness At All Cost. The slaves are being stirred up like a hornet’s nest, set to strike at any moment.”

Nyuka shrugged. “You worry too much. Have you forgot the words of Kishimo Jiraiya? ‘For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only expedient, but necessary; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out as slaves, others as masters.’ It’s the law of the world.” The poet grinned, raising his cup of sake. “Drink more wine, Arashi-sama, and listen less to idle talk.” 

Arashi frowned, the wrinkles on his thin, yellowish face rippling as he changed expression. “Yet since the rumors began coming from across the sea, it must be admitted the slaves have not been the same. You know how superstitious and stupid the whole lot are. Half of them believe the Sage of Six Paths is some sort of god who is come to liberate them from their chains, and the other half believe just the same thing only they think the Sage is a demon from hell instead. None believe he is just a man named Senju Hagoromo with a fancy robe and a few circus tricks. Fear and habit will keep the slaves in line, but only for so long.”

“Pah!” Hyuuga Hiashi cried out. “Hagoromo this, Hagoromo that! I’m tired of hearing about the Butcher! I’m not afraid of him!” The Admiral banged his wine cup on the table, spraying sake all over his flushed red face. “Bring in the slavegirls!”

Naruto suppressed a groan. _Not the slavegirls again._ The last time Lord Hiashi called them in he had near died from the excitement, and he was not half as drunk then as now. _If he falls over tonight I suppose it will save the Kitsune a good deal of trouble._

Though not too much trouble, at that. Hiashi and his guests were feasting under a little outside pavilion in his garden, open on all four sides to the night air. The manor house was many yards away. Thickets of cherry and plum trees obscured the ground, and the roof of the lightly guarded Shinjukame Temple hung over the wall right in front of them. Naruto could not have picked an easier place to attack if he tried. It was a death trap. A pretty, relaxing, fragrant death trap to be sure, but that was hardly worth a dagger to the heart.

The boy had tried to warn Hiashi of the danger. The Admiral had ignored him. “Bugger your Demon Fox, and bugger you as well, slaveboy!” he had said. _Well, whatever happens tonight, Master can’t blame me._

A horn sounded, and the slavegirls entered the pavilion, a dozen concubines in long sleeved robes of glittering silk. They made a ring around the table, dancing and swaying to the tune of flutes. Each seemed younger and prettier than the last.

“Now these are the kind of slaves that I like! No swords!” Lord Hiashi shouted.

The drunken nobles roared with glee. “No swords! No swords!” they echoed. Nyuka pounded the table so hard he turned over a bowl of blowfish soup, and the head monk of Shinjukame Temple, Maito Gai, went so far as to jump on top of it. “No swords!” the monk shouted. “Just scabbards!”

“ _Scabbards_ , is that what you call it?” Rin asked, giggling. “Men. Show them a hole and they’ll try to stick something in it.”

Sougon Sawar, the Minister of Coin, smiled. His sharp slitted eyes were as black and shiny as pools of coal oil. “It seems you are enjoying yourself as well, Lady Rin-san. What has it been, one week, since your husband was murdered by the Kitsune? And yet here you are… happier than ever, some might say.”

“Spare me, Sawar-san.” Rin popped chopsticks full of steamed beef with honey sauce into her mouth. “If Kakashi were not such a fat gouty fool he could hardly have been stabbed to death in his sleep, could he have?”

The Minister’s eyes twinkled. “Would it have pleased you more if he died awake?”

It was not long before the slavegirls began to strip off each other’s clothes. Naruto watched them idly. _They are not so beautiful as me, and a trained cow could dance better._ The nobles did not care about that, though. They banged the table as the girls started to touch and kiss each other in pairs. Each pair of girls clung together as if they were drowning, afraid to let go, bouncing up and down with frantic moans. Their waxed, oiled bodies glistened gold in the lantern light, their long thick hair spilled down over their breasts like flowing streams. The girls kissed, tongues sucking, biting. Their hips swayed from side to side. Their ripe round breasts jiggled and slapped against each other. The drunk men shouted for more. Soon the girls were moaning so loud they had gone half hoarse, clutching their partner’s back so tight the painted nails raked blood. Naruto almost laughed. _They scream like constipated geese, if a goose could fake a scream that is. These slaves aren’t lovers, they’re puppets in a mummer’s farce. The only real thing is the black cross branded on their foreheads._

Some were better at the farce than others, though. Even as the dinner guests talked and drank among themselves, they kept glancing at the pair of girls at the head of the table. One was a woman grown, with fiery red hair and a husky voice and huge breasts like melons. The other girl was younger than Naruto, doe-eyed and slim, with delicate fingers and breasts so tiny a man could hold them both in one hand. She leaned in to suck the husky woman’s dark, stiff nipples, pulling and biting until the woman screamed in pain. The husky woman in turn pushed her fingers between the girl’s legs, moving them in and out of her wet cunt, kneading it. The doe girl groaned, her body shivering with pleasure. Their sweet young bodies twined and snaked.

Namikaze Nyuka stood up. “Gods! I’ve just caught some sort of nasty disease!”

“What’s wrong?” the other drunkards cried out. 

“Why, I do believe my cock’s gone hard as a mast. I can’t stand it! Slavegirls! Slavegirls! Pray, I beg you, can you cure me?” Nyuka laughed, tossing his fine straight golden hair. The poet gathered the two slavegirls to him, one to each arm. The husky woman grinded her breasts against the poet’s chest, the doe girl reached down a hand to grab the poet’s manhood. “Is that a yes? What’s that, girls? Yes, I _do_ have a sword.” Nyuka led the slaves stumbling down the garden path, toward the manor house.

“Our poor diseased poet,” Rin laughed. “It’s hard to cure a chronic illness.”

Meanwhile, the talk of the other guests had drifted back to the topic of the night. 

“I fear you underestimate Hagoromo, Lord Hiashi-san,” Misain Arashi was saying. “Thirteen years ago he fled across the sea a hunted man, reviled by all the world for massacring his own family on the Night of Blood. Yet now he is more powerful than he ever was before. He rules the entire south with an iron fist.”

“Hagoromo’s mother was a princess in the south,” pointed out Sougon Sawar. “The heir to the empire of Genoa, in fact. He was hardly without a preexisting claim.”

“Otsutsuki Kaguya gave up her right to the crown when she married Senju Sarutobi against the wishes of her clan.”

“Yes, and exiled across the sea never to return. A wayward princess is one thing, her dashing son in need another. They say that Hagoromo looked so much like his mother that even his own soldiers would call him Otsutsuki Hagoromo, by his mother’s clan name instead of his father’s. Bloodnames are as important in the south as they are here. The southerners would not deny a prince of the legendary Otsutsuki blood.”

Hiashi spat. “Pah! The Butcher uses the southerners like a pirate on a captured ship. So what? I’m not afraid of him!”

Arashi shook his head. “But what if the stories are true? The Sage of Six Paths has magic eyes, they say. He can make the five elements with his hands. He can heal the sick and raise the dead. They even say he has imprisoned the legendary ten-tailed demon… ”

“Ridiculous!” Hiashi sputtered. “Sawar, damn you, I’m drunk as piss, but I’m not stupid! Listen! The Butcher may have conquered the south, he may be some prophet _over there_ , I don’t care. If he wants to come _over here_ he must cross the Endless Sea. And in spite of all his so-called magic, the Butcher can’t fly. Yes?” For no apparent reason the Admiral started to beat his chest with his fists, like a gorilla. “I’ve crossed the Endless Sea, and I tell you, I thank the gods I am still alive. The storms take seven out of every ten ships. If the Butcher is so stupid as to sail with a fleet from the south, he’ll die. And if he doesn’t, I’ll meet him with the Scarlet Fleet and destroy him. The Butcher does not have a chance! No chance!”

“That may be,” Misain Arashi said, “but if so, then why is the Warlord so worried? Why would he recall the entire Scarlet Fleet to defend Sawara?”

“Why do you think?” Hiashi cried, too drunk to hold his tongue. “Our great Warlord is bloody afraid. Anyone can see that. Itachi-sama feels the danger in his bones, he told me. Hah! In that scar on his head, more like. Aye, I don’t blame him, of course. The Butcher killed his whole family during the Night of Blood. Terrible… terrible…” 

Arashi nodded. His face was grave. “Yes, the Night of Blood. Even now I can scarce believe that Hagoromo could do such a thing. I was invited to the wedding, but Rin was sick and I had to take care of her. We all thought it was a day blessed by gods. The union of the Senju and Uchiha clans… dashing Hagoromo and beautiful Sakura. Who could have imagined it was a trap? The Butcher burned them all alive, his bride, his bride’s family, even his own father. You could see the flames consume the castle from miles away. Only Itachi-sama survived. He could have gone mad, but instead he became stronger, harder. Those of us who knew Itachi as a boy remember how soft he was, how weak. But after the Night of Blood he became a man. Itachi-sama was reborn that night.”

The monk Maito Gai unexpectedly popped his head out from between a slavegirl’s breasts. His face was beet red, his words were slurred, but his voice boomed as he chanted a phrase. It was not one that Naruto had ever heard before:

 _Before they are born,_  
_Things cannot decline to be born;_  
_Already dead,_  
_They cannot refuse to go._

“What is that, Gai-san?” Hiashi demanded. “Some Zen sutra?”

The monk smiled stupidly, rubbing his shaved head. “Is it?” He blinked. “Oh! I heard it from a girl down by the port. I think. There’s more… something about Kindness At All Cost…”

There was a scream, strangled, cut short.

It came from the samurai guarding the garden path outside. He stumbled, clawing at his throat, blood running down his hands. A kunai was lodged in his windpipe. _Shit!_ Naruto unsheathed his sword and rushed forward. Maito Gai screamed, covering his face. Naked slavegirls ran in all directions. Rin laughed. There was a general wild uproar.

And then he was there, in the pavilion. He stepped onto the roof somehow, walking on it upside down. The man wore black ninja garb, and a mask of black cloth covered his lower face, exposing only glittering green eyes and spikes of silver hair. Around his forehead was a white bandana with a gold symbol stitched in it, a spiraling eye within a six-sided wall. In each hand the man held a kunai.

 _The Kitsune_ , Naruto thought. _So you’re here at last. Come then, and taste my blade._

But the man did not attack, and then samurai were rushing in from all sides, warned by the scream. Within moments the Kitsune was surrounded. For a long moment the two sides just stared at each other. Then Hyuuga Hiashi staggered to his feet, his head near level with the upside-down assassin. “Why hello, Demon Fox!” the Admiral said. “Come to enjoy some wine and women? Haha!” 

The Kitsune spoke. It was a feral voice, harsh and guttural. “I have a message for you. All of you. It is from the Sage of Six Paths himself. He is coming. He is coming from across the sea to bring Kindness, and freedom, and justice. And all who stand in his way shall die. You are not the first, nor will you be the last.” 

The assassin attacked. His movement was a whirling blur, as fast as Naruto had ever seen. But Naruto was fast as well, and he was at an advantage, since he was on the ground and the Kitsune was in the air. The slaveboy slid between the Kitsune’s kunai, right below him, and thrust his katana upwards as hard as he could. He exulted as the sword went straight into the Kitsune’s chest. But even as he did so the man burst apart, fading away into strands of smoke. _Impossible!_ Was this magic?

Naruto spun, out of position, only to watch as the real Kitsune came from behind, on the other side of the room. _His smoke body was just a decoy_. And then in an instant the man was right above Admiral Hiashi, kneeling on the roof. Naruto noticed the ninja was not holding anything. But he did something with his hands and fingers, flashing them in some sort of pattern, fast as a blink.

“Katon!” the Kitsune yelled.

Fire exploded from the Demon Fox’s mouth.

The fireball hit Hiashi at point blank range. He did not even have time to scream. The force of the fire blew up the dinner table and a good portion of the pavilion. _Fuck! Not bloody magic again!_ Naruto pushed through the sudden smoke and fire. Sawar had dodged the fireball, taking Rin and the monk with him, saving their lives. But what remained of Hyuuga Hiashi lay in the ruins of the burning room, charred to ash, along with several samurai and two naked women. All dead. _Master will be very displeased._

The Kitsune still stood on the roof. He stared at Naruto, his eyes glittering, glowing in the flames like hot coals. He seemed to smile. “Oops,” he said. “I missed the rest of them. Well. There’s always next time.”

“Damn you!” Naruto shouted. “I’ll have your head for this, demon!”

The ninja laughed as he fled the burning pavilion. “Then catch me, slaveboy, if you can.”


	4. The Perfect Ninja

Naruto chased the Demon Fox across the rooftops of Sawara.

The boy was not the only hunter. Samurai flooded in from all sides, trying to encircle the Kitsune. The net was closing quickly. At this rate the Kitsune would not even make it out of the High District before he had been caught. _No, too easy_ , the boy thought. _The fox must have a foxhole._ But where was it?

Naruto pushed his speed to the limit. He was only yards behind the fleeing ninja, close enough he could hear the ninja’s feet clattering on the clay roof tiles as they ran, hear his ragged breath. “It seems something is wrong with your heart, Demon Fox,” the boy called. “I can hear it pounding from back here.”

The ninja twisted his head around, green eyes flashing. “It means I’m still alive. What’s wrong with that?”

The Kitsune turned direction, running east toward the river. A wall of samurai was already there, blocking the way. _He means to go through them_ , Naruto realized. But how? Would he use the fire magic spell again? Naruto’s mind raced through the possibilities. The last time the man had cast the spell, he had used a sequence of hand gestures to do it. Perhaps the ninja needed them for the magic to work. _If so, while he’s waving his hands around_ _I’ll leap from behind and cut off his head._

Instead the ninja threw a kunai; it struck at the feet of the samurai blockade. A little paper tag was attached to the handle. A pink-haired samurai laughed. “Aiming for the roof will do you no good, Demon Fox!” he shouted.

The paper tag exploded

Only a smoking hole remained to mark the spot where the pink-haired samurai had stood. A second later the rest of the roof caved in, swallowing any nearby samurai in a cloud of dust and wood chips. Naruto skidded to a stop, stunned. _An exploding piece of paper?_ Where was the Kitsune? There. He was already on the other side, beyond the blockade, running out of the High District, and into the low city. _Shit!_

The Kitsune looked back as he ran, his silver hair whipping in the wind. He laughed. “Do you still hear my heart, slaveboy?”

“I heard enough already,” Naruto gave back, rather feebly.

The boy began the hunt again, now further behind. The ninja veered south. At this angle he would soon reach the heart of the Merchant District, the riverbank where Sawara Bridge intersected Market Street. The slave markets. Wide open squares, with few hiding places, and strongly guarded. It was a perfect chance to corner the ninja…

_No_ , Naruto realized. _Something’s wrong. That’s what he did before, and he escaped._ If Kakashi’s old samurai had told him true, the Kitsune they caught in Market Street had turned to magic smoke. A decoy body.

Could it be? Had the man done the same thing this time? But when had he used his hands to cast the spell? Naruto would have seen it. _No_. The exploding paper tag, the cloud of smoke. The Kitsune could have done it then. If so, then Naruto was running in the wrong direction. _Not south, north._ He could not be sure he was right, but it was a risk he had to take.

Naruto turned north. He had a hunch as to where the real Kitsune might be heading. East of the High District, across the river, was the capital’s Pleasure District, otherwise known as Sin City. It was a nest of criminals and traitors and outcasts, the scum of Sawara. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The Demon Fox would fit right in.    

The slaveboy did not guess wrong. Soon he spotted a small, black-clothed figure in the distance. The Kitsune was not running nearly as fast as he had been before. _He’s let his guard down._ At once Naruto slid down to street level to conceal his pursuit, running down the narrow, winding lanes, pushing through the night crowds heading to Sin City. The Kitsune had just enough headway on him to cross the river, but after that the bridges converged at the Street of Beggars, the heart of the Pleasure District. He would intercept the assassin there.

The sounds of the city, subdued and near silent west of the river, began to roar. Song and laughter drifted from kabuki theaters. Half-naked whores catcalled from brothel windows. Gaggles of lord’s wives haggled over the latest fashions in the streets. In the midst of all this noise Naruto could barely hear anything else, but then he did. The sound of footsteps on rooftop tiles.

The Kitsune was right above him. _I found the foxhole, and now it’s time to smoke the fox out._ Gathering himself, Naruto braced himself on a pillar and leapt up to the roof with one kick. The ninja was there, in front of him, his silver hair shining in the light of the crescent moon, his green eyes wide with shock.

_I’ve got you, you little magic coward ninja demon bitch._ Naruto swung his katana as hard as he could.

The Demon Fox dodged at the last second, throwing himself backward, rolling on the clay tiles into a crouch. The slash had been so close it cut off a lock of his silver hair, which drifted to the street below.

“You’re persistent, slaveboy,” the Demon Fox growled in that feral voice. “Did you miss the sound of my heart?”

“No, I was concerned for your stomach,” Naruto said. “You’ve been running so hard, you must be hungry. Here, have a taste of this.”

Naruto attacked. He drove at the man, bringing his sword above his head in a swift deadly arc. The Kitsune blocked the slash with his two kunai. Steel meet steel with a ringing, bone-jarring _clang_. But Naruto pressed the attack, the blade like lightning in his hands, and the man was forced to fall back. The slave rained steel upon the ninja, blow after blow. No sooner did the Kitsune turn one cut than the next was upon him.

Naruto’s blood was singing. This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke. This is what his master had trained him for. He was a weapon, his master’s weapon. _I am his right arm._ _I am the instrument of my master’s will. No demon cannot withstand me._ The steel blades kissed and sprang apart and kissed again.

“You’re strong,” the Kitsune said at last, chest heaving. “Almost as strong as me.”

“Oh, a poor choice of last words. I’ll be sure to carve them on your gravestone.”

Naruto whirled his blade, striking, hacking, a dance of steel. The Kitsune was at a disadvantage. He had the same build and height as Naruto, but Naruto’s katana had a reach far greater than the ninja’s daggers. _That’s what you get for sneaking around stabbing people at night instead of carrying a real weapon._ The slaveboy could attack as he pleased, but the ninja had no way to counter. It was all he could do to parry and fall back. High, low, overhand, Naruto rained down death upon him. Left, right, backslash, swinging so hard that sparks flew when the weapons came together, upswing, thrust, overhand, always attacking, moving into the enemy, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, strike and leap, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster…

Naruto could not have said how long he pressed the attack. It might have been minutes or it might have been hours; time slept when swords woke. He drove the Kitsune back, across a brothel roof, then across it to the next roof, on and on, pushing him across the rooftops of Sin City. A dozen times Naruto thought the man was done, that the next cut would finish him, but somehow the ninja slipped out from the killing stroke. The dance went on. Steel rang, steel sang, steel screamed and sparked and scraped, and Naruto grunted with effort at every crash.

_It can’t go on like this._ Naruto’s sword seemed to grow heavier with each passing cut. He could not attack forever, and he dared not rest. If he gave the ninja an opening, any opening, the Kitsune’s hands would be free to use magic, and then Naruto would be finished. He needed to end it, but how?

Then he saw the way. He had the Demon Fox pinned against a roof corner, with walls on either side. The man had no room to maneuver. Naruto pretended to fall, but he twisted the fall into a diving lunge, a lightning thrust with all his weight behind it. The momentum took the point of his sword past the man’s parry. But the ninja dodged again, somehow, sidestepping the thrust. At once the Kitsune had closed the distance between them, close enough he could reach out his arm and touch the boy’s cheek.

Naruto saw too late his mistake. _Shit! He’s inside my guard._ At this range his katana was useless, but the ninja’s kunai were not. The Kitsune slashed upwards, at Naruto’s throat. Naruto dropped his sword, using the free hand to grab at the ninja’s arm. The motion was clumsy, and he lost his balance, falling hard to the tiled roof, but it was just enough to save his life. Naruto rolled backwards into a crouch, now barehanded. _Fuck!_

The Kitsune laughed. “Like I said… _almost_ as strong. ‘Till next time, slaveboy.”

The ninja hopped off the roof into the street. “Kitsune!” Naruto yelled. The boy tried to follow, sword be damned, but he had just enough sense to notice two kunai stuck into the roof’s edge. Paper tags were attached to the handles, scrawled with strange markings. And the markings… burned…

Naruto flung himself hard to the side. The tags exploded, taking half the roof with it. The boy lay on his stomach, coughing and stunned. _I hate magic._ Through the smoke he could see dimly down through the hole in the roof. Several whores had been killed by falling debris, and the rest were running around screaming in various states of undress. _At least it didn’t collapse this time._

When he got back to his feet, the Demon Fox was gone.

It was a long way back to the palace. It was almost on the other side of the city, down the Street of Beggars, across the Haven River, through the Samurai District, and up the steep, towering hill that led to the high city. Naruto’s muscles ached as he climbed the hill, as he trudged up the endless stone stairs that flanked the palace entrance. All of sudden he felt very tired. _Master will be very displeased_ , he thought again.

When the slaveboy came to the throne room at last, it was half past midnight. Throngs of petty functionaries crowded into the chamber, staring at Naruto when he walked in. They knew what had happened, of course, but Naruto could not care less for those bleating sheep. He had eyes only for the man who sat cross-legged on the throne at the far end, beneath a great mural of the ancient kings of old, the Birthright Emperors who had ruled the land for a thousand years from this place.

Now it was Uchiha Itachi, Warlord of the Blood Country, who ruled. His master was dressed in robes of the finest silken gold, but his head was bowed and his face all in shadow, as if hid by a black mask. He sat motionless as a statue as Naruto approached. _Not a good sign. That means he’s angry._

Naruto kneeled on all fours, and bowed his head to the ground. “Master. I failed you. Admiral Hyuuga Hiashi-dono is dead, and the Kitsune is escaped. He is far more dangerous than we knew. I—”

His master held up a hand. “Leave us,” he said. The functionaries hurried to obey, scurrying like roaches before the sun. In seconds the Warlord and his slaveboy were alone.

The boy swallowed, nervously. “Master, please, let me explain—”

Itachi interrupted him. “Come here, Naruto.” The boy fell silent and went to him. The man gestured with his hand to his lap. The slave curled up on it, laying his head on the master’s shoulder. Lord Itachi’s thick hair hung down like a silver glacier, brushing against the boy’s cheek, and his huge arms swallowed the boy’s slender body. This was the posture his master liked best when they were together, and Naruto reveled in the safe, strong embrace. For a moment he forgot his fear.

His master stroked the boy’s face softly. Naruto closed his eyes. “Little Naruto,” his master whispered. “My dear little slave. I gave you a mission.”

“I know, Master. I failed. But it wasn’t my fault. The Kitsune can use some sort of magic. I saw it myself—create illusions of his body, spit fire from his mouth. Master, no one can defeat him alone. And Lord Hiashi-dono, I warned him—”

Itachi slipped his hand into Naruto’s kimono. Naruto felt the strong, rough hand slide slowly down his bare chest and belly, then between his thighs. Naruto’s dick was hard, and the man stroked it through the loincloth. “Naruto. You seem to forget your place. Do you remember who you are?”

“I am your tool, Master. I live only to serve you.”

“Yes. You are my weapon. The perfect weapon. Whatever I will, you obey without question. Whatever I ask of you, you accomplish. But it seems my weapon… it is rusty…” Itachi slipped his hand under the loincloth and grabbed the boy’s cock. The hand enclosed it all, tight as a vise. “And what, little Naruto, must be done to a rusty weapon?”

Naruto gasped as Itachi squeezed his penis. _The rust must be cleansed._ “Please, Master. It wasn’t my fault.” _He’s going to punish me. I can feel it. It will be bad this time, very bad._

Itachi squeezed harder. “Then why is my Admiral dead?”

The slaveboy cried out in pain as the master wrung his dick. Tears leaked from his eyes. “It’s really Hiashi’s fault anyway! If he listened to me—” Naruto trailed off. He knew as he said it that he had made a mistake. He opened his eyes to stare into his master’s face, at those dark merciless eyes, and that terrible burned scar. “Master, I didn’t… I meant…”

Uchiha Itachi’s voice was colder than ice. “I heard what you said. It seems I have indulged you too much. You do not act as a slave should. Or have you forgotten?”

“Please, Master—”

Suddenly the Warlord leaped to his feet, and took his slave with him, holding the boy in the air by his erect cock. Naruto screamed, the pressure on his dick so great it seemed about to snap. The Warlord flung him. The boy went through the mural and smashed on the wood pillar behind it, cracking it in two. He lay dazed in the rubble. His ribs were cracked, and he coughed blood.  

His master stood over him. His face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have been sculpted from snow. “Hyuuga Hiashi is the leader of one of the great _noble_ clans. You are a _slave_. Do you presume to give _advice_ to him?” Itachi kicked his slave in the gut. It was like being hit with an iron hammer. The boy could only curl up into a ball, crying in pain. “Will you give advice to _me_ next?”

“Never, Master! Never!”

“You are a slave. And that is all you are. Never forget it.”

“Master, I failed you. I’m sorry!” _I failed him. I’m his tool and I failed. All my fault. All my fault…_

“As you should be. My Admiral is dead. I am displeased, little Naruto.” Itachi beat him viciously, over and over again, like a stray dog. “I am very, very displeased…”  

Naruto screamed. His vision swam with purple spots. He felt his ribs break, his guts rupture. The last time his master had beat him this badly was years ago. His master was so angry. _He’s going to kill me_. No, he could not die yet. He had to live, his mission was not done. _I must protect Master._ He had tried to warn him. The Kitsune always attacks a bigger target than the last. Hyuuga Hiashi was dead and there was only one person in the country who was more important. _You, Master. The Demon Fox will come for you next._  


	5. Brand of Kindness

The heads of the dead men hung from spikes, rows upon rows, hundreds of them, lining the wooden bridge.

In another life they had been samurai, the personal household guards of General Nara Kakashi and Admiral Hyuuga Hiashi. But their lives had ended when their lords's had. In his rage the Warlord had them all put to death.

Naruto walked between the heads, limping slightly. One of the heads seemed familiar. Through the rotting flesh and the buzzing flies, the boy just barely recognized the old, wrinkled samurai who had been Kakashi's captain of guards. That day he had begged the boy to intervene with the Warlord to save their lives.

_I barely saved my own, yours I could not bother with._ It did not matter that the Demon Fox was made of magic smoke. It did not matter that he was a sorcerer. _The price for failure is death, that is the law of the Blood Country. It is my master's law._

A lance of pain shot up Naruto's side. He stumbled, clutching his ribs, gritting his teeth. The wounds had not fully healed yet, even now, almost a week after the beating. Naruto was just glad to be alive. "You have served me well, Naruto," his master had told him when the boy woke up afterward. "You will not fail me again, will you, my little slave?" And Naruto had shook his head, no, no, I won't, I'll find the Kitsune, I promise, please, I promise.

The boy crossed over the wooden bridge into the Pleasure District. Sin City was not very busy this time of morning; still, the signs of sin were everywhere. Several whores catcalled to Naruto from windowsills, thinking him a samurai. Two geishas in colorful silk kimonos passed by, giggling and laughing and twirling umbrellas. A squid seller hawked his wares to a group of exotic dancers with painted faces.

Was the Demon Fox still here? The boy didn't know. The ninja had not been sighted since his attack on Hyuuga Hiashi, one week ago. By now he could be in a ship halfway across the Endless Sea. _That would be most inconvenient._ Somehow, though, Naruto thought the Kitsune had not left the city. _No, he's here, hiding somewhere, I can almost taste it._ But where? And as what?

Naruto walked the streets of Sin City slowly, circling from the central Street of Beggars outward to the more seedy establishments on the fringes. He was not sure what he was searching for, what sign or symbol hidden in this nest of criminals was the key to the hunt. It did not help matters when it began to rain. The misty spring rain pattered on the dusty streets, turning them into a slosh of mud. Naruto cursed his luck, and dodged under the hanging roofs. His left leg ached, and every so often he had to stop to catch his breath.

On one of these stops the boy noticed the name of a brothel next to him. The sign was painted in large red characters: "HOUSE OF BROTHERLY LOVE." It was the whorehouse of the slave Naruto had met a few weeks ago, on the roof of Shinjukame Temple.

_How droll_ , the boy thought. _I search for the Kitsune, and fate sends me a whore instead._ He turned to go, but then stopped. He could not get much done wandering around in the rain, and besides, this was the same area where his fight with the Kitsune had taken place. Perhaps he could question some of the whores, ask if they had seen something. It could not hurt.

Naruto went inside.

The brothel was a ramshackle building, dirty and poorly lit. _The finest erotic establishment this side of Sawara, indeed._ Several young male slaves in robes of thin linen lounged around the common room; they looked about as cheap as their clothes.

A thin man with a pockmarked face and black eyes like slits sat behind a counter. He rose when he saw the slaveboy, grinning broadly. He actually took a little bow. "Greetings, my friend. I welcome you to the House of Brotherly Love. I have the honor to be Momochi Zabuza."

_Where's the honor in that?_ The only good thing to be said about a pimp was that at least they were not whores.

Naruto had to be polite, though. He bowed. "Zabuza-dono, I am Naruto, slaveboy of the Warlord Itachi."

"Ah. And what can I do for you? Perhaps you would like to peruse my specimens of Love? Care to take a look, friend?"

"He's lookin' for the Demon Fox, Master," a voice piped up.

Naruto knew the voice. He turned. The other boy was on the top of the steps leading to the second floor, shirtless and barefoot, a grin on his face. Sasuke. For a moment Naruto's tongue tied in knots, and he could not speak. But then he said, "And what would you know about that, whore?"

"More than you. I'll tell, but it's gonna cost ya somethin' pretty." The boy turned to Zabuza. "Master, let him up. I know what he wants."

Zabuza grinned, spreading his hands. "Of course, anything for my friend." _He must think I'm rich._

Naruto bowed again. "Thank you, Zabuza-dono."

Naruto followed Sasuke up a flight of stairs, then down a long hall to a small, cramped room. There was nothing in the room but a padded quilt thrown on the wooden floorboards, a large trunk, and a small table with a washpan. The stench of semen and sweat flooded the air. Sasuke slid the door closed behind them. With one hand he fingered back his black hair, and Naruto saw the slaveseal branded on his forehead. "I told ya we'd see each other again," he said.

"I'm pleased your memory works so well."

"Thanks." Sasuke seemed to stare into Naruto's eyes. "I like you, ya'know. I dunno why, but I do."

Naruto could not help but stare back. The other boy was wearing nothing but a loincloth, not even a robe. His body was slim as a sword, his skin as smooth and white as the moon. A tangle of scruffy hair, dark as a raven's feathers, shaded his glittering green eyes, like shadows against the leaves of summer. _Those eyes_ … suddenly they seemed familiar, somehow, as if Naruto had seen them somewhere else, not on Shinjukame Temple but more recently. He could not place it. "Tell me what you know of the Demon Fox," he said.

Sasuke smiled. "I saw you two fighting. That night, on the rooftops."

"You did?"

"Lotsa people could've seen it, if they'd bothered. Ya' were running all around Sin City, trying to hack each other apart with swords. Nobody ever looks up though." Sasuke shrugged. "I saw the Kitsune get away, too."

Naruto tensed at that. _Could this whore actually know what I want?_ "Where did he go? You must tell me. You will be greatly rewarded, I promise you."

"Yeah? Wha'do I get?"

"If you speak the truth, the Warlord will grant you whatever you desire. You can be a lord, with a palace in the high city, with your own slaves." _Well, maybe not the lord part. Or the palace. Or the slaves. What's a little lie in a good cause?_

Sasuke giggled. "Okay. And what happens to him?"

"Who?"

"The Demon Fox, dummy. What're ya gonna do to him, if I tell you?"

"Less than he deserves for his crimes."

"Crimes? That depends on where ya are. Look around you, Naruto. You ain't in the high city no more. It's all slaves and commoners here. They can't care less bout no dead Admiral, and the ones who could be bothered might give the Kitsune a hero's salute if they had the chance. Hey now, don't get so frowny like that. You're pouting. I said I'd tell ya, right? Well… after the fight, I saw the Kitsune run north. He passed right over the roof over there, and then he was runnin' east. And he just kept on runnin', like really fast. I think he was headin' for the Godswood."

The Godswood was the Warlord's private hunting grounds, on the outskirts of Sawara near Sin City. A good hiding place, sparsely guarded, easy to get in and out of. It made sense. "You must show me the precise location," Naruto said. "At once."

"Well… okay. But later. I didn't bring ya up here just to talk, ya'know." The boy's smile was by turns shy, insolent, and wicked. His cheeks dimpled. "I told you, I like you."

"Is that another proposition, whore?" Naruto smirked. "I fear I must decline, I quite prefer to be free of venereal disease. You shall have payment enough, I promise. Enough coin to pay over your last thousand fucks."

Suddenly Sasuke seemed angry. He turned away, then whirled back, raven hair flying, eyes flashing. "Is that who you think you are? You acting all so stuffy and serious. Like you're better somehow. You're a slaveboy, same as me."

"You're a whore, not a slaveboy."

"All slaves are whores in their master's eyes. It's just I spread my legs on a cheap rug, and you do it under silk sheets. We both get fucked the same. Or shall I call you m'lord slave? Naruto-dono? Would your master like that?"

_The whore speaks treason._ For some reason Naruto was getting angry, too. "Enough. Yes, we are slaves. We are our master's tools. But we are not the same. I am my master's perfect weapon, I am with him always, I am his right arm. And you, you're nothing, you're just a worthless whore, nobody cares about you or if you live or die. We're nothing alike!"

The other boy laughed. "No, maybe not. You're such a good little slave. So damn loyal. That scar on ya' forehead ain't a brand of evil, for you. It ain't. It's a brand of kindness. I never met anybody like that. Ya'know… I think, maybe… that's why I like you…"

Sasuke stepped toward Naruto. He reached out to wrap his arms around the other boy's waist… and Naruto drew back. But as he did so he gasped in pain, wincing, and had to put a hand on the table to keep from falling. _Shit. Not now._

Sasuke's green eyes widened. "You're hurt," he said simply. "Show me."

"Stop," Naruto gasped. "Get away."

"Show me," Sasuke said again, insistent. He moved to pull down Naruto's robe, but Naruto stumbled back again, toward the door.

"Naruto!" Sasuke said. "Come on, I know ya're hurt. I have medicine. I can help you… please…"

He moved to touch Naruto a third time and this time Naruto let him. Sasuke's fingers were gentle as he slowly slid Naruto's robe down to the waist, baring the slaveboy's chest and back.

When he saw the bruises Sasuke's eyes grew wide as full moons. "Wow! Even I never got beat so bad."

"How distressing."

Sasuke reached out a trembling hand to touch the ugly black-blue bruises on Naruto's body. To Naruto's surprise, he saw that the other boy's eyes were filled with tears. "Did the Warlord do this to you?" he whispered. "He beat you because you didn't protect that stupid old Admiral, didn't he? Because he wanted to punish you? So he beat you?"

"He seldom beats me to improve my health."

"That's not funny." Sasuke dug around in his trunk for some cream ointment. "Come on, sit. This'll make ya feel better."

Naruto sat, kneeling on his legs. Sasuke kneeled down with him and gently rubbed the cream on the bruises with soft, sure fingers. It felt good. "Silly," Sasuke said. "You're not gonna try to fight the Kitsune with wounds like that, are ya? Best wait 'til ya're healed before I take you to the Godswood." He finished in silence and then turned his head away.

They didn't speak for a while. Then Naruto said, "I never met anyone like you either."

"And ya' don't even know me yet." Sasuke smiled at him, a flash of bright white teeth. The tip of his tongue ran across his lower lip like a shy pink animal.

Then somehow the other boy's arms were around his neck, his face close enough Naruto could see his own reflection in those gleaming jade eyes. He could feel the boy's sweet breath, smell his dark oiled fragrance. Naruto didn't move away. _No, no, what am I doing? I can't—_

"Sasuke—" Naruto started.

Sasuke leaned forward and their mouths met. A light touch on the lips, at first, but then deeper, then their lips pressed tight and Naruto shut his eyes and they threw themselves against each other, pressing, sucking, and their lips parted and warm wet tongues met and danced, twisting, sliding, and Naruto's hands clutched at the other boy's head, digging into his soft scruffy hair, and the kiss seemed to last forever, and Naruto's cock was hard and stiff as iron, and Sasuke's mouth was hot and burning and it tasted like the summer wind…

"No," Naruto gasped. He pushed the other boy back. "No… I can't." He panted, his face all flushed red, his glittering blue eyes dilated like saucers. "Stop. No."

Sasuke was flushed, too. The clear outline of an erect penis poked up through the fabric of his loincloth. "What's the rush?" he whispered. "Don't leave me now, Naruto." He leaned in for another kiss, but this time the boy scrambled back, standing up.

"No," Naruto said. "No. I can't. I must go." He stumbled for the door.

The raven-haired boy knelt on the floor and watched him go. "Till next time, then."


	6. Just One Last Thing

The Godswood at night was still, but not silent. Amid the dark trees Naruto could hear the calls of distant sparrows and pheasants, the singing of crickets. The sound seemed to drill into the forest depths, echoing all around them.

"Here," Sasuke said. "The Demon Fox came this way." He pointed to a footprint pressed in a caked clump of earth.

"Well done," Naruto said. "The Warlord is pleased. Return to Sin City, and await your reward. I'll continue on."

Sasuke smiled, a flash of white teeth in the night. "I don't want to."

"You—" Naruto's face flushed red. _Why must he make this so difficult_? The boy groped for words, for a retort. "It is not safe for a whore to walk the woods alone at night."

"I'm not alone."

"Oh, you will be."

Sasuke's smile faded. "I know these woods as good as you. I can help ya track the Kitsune—I found the print, didn't I? Don't leave me, Naruto. Please."

The whore had a point, he was forced to admit. _It will last one night, and then I'll never see him again._ "Fine, then. Lead on."

Sasuke grinned, then darted into the forest like a cat. Naruto followed behind at a safe distance. He dared not let the other boy get too close, less… and suddenly he could feel Sasuke's mouth on his tongue again, feel the blazing heat of his lips. _No_. He must stop thinking about that. It was just a kiss. He had kissed other boys before. _But that was in Master Itachi's presence, on Master's orders…_ no, stop thinking about it. Stop.

And yet Naruto had not, not for the whole week. Not during his dreams, not during his waking moments. Not even yesterday, when his master had finally taken Naruto back to bed, and his master was thrusting into him with all his violent power, and tears leaked down Naruto's cheeks from the pain—not even then did the slaveboy forget Sasuke's face.

_I betrayed Master_ , Naruto thought afterward. _I live only to serve him, and I failed. I must never see that whore again._ But that was impossible. He had still to find the Demon Fox, and Sasuke was the only one who could help him. _Yet another crime to lay on this bloody Kitsune's head._

The Kitsune's trail led from the edge of the Godswood deeper and deeper into the forest. At last they came to a clearing, a small bare field hidden between twisting pine trees. People had been there before them. Many of the branches had been hacked off for firewood, and a circle of ashes lay on the ground, the remains of a covered fire. Cloth tents were sprawled here and there, fallen-in from disuse.

"This is a hideout," Naruto said, understanding. "A meeting place." There were too many tents for one person to have used. Of course; the Kitsune must be in contact with Hagoromo's other spies, other traitors. _A conspiracy in the heart of the Blood Country_...

"Was a hideout," Sasuke said, gesturing to the old ashes, the collapsed tents. "Ain't nobody been here for a while."

"Yet you claimed the Kitsune was here less than two weeks ago."

Sasuke shrugged. "Maybe he came back to get somethin'. Maybe he was sendin' a message to his boss." The boy paused. "The prophet's coming, you know. The Sage of Six Paths. He's coming to free all the slaves."

"You have a bold tongue, whore. Some one is like to cut it out and make you eat it."

"That so?" Sasuke licked his lips. "And who'll cut my tongue? You?"

A blush crept up Naruto's cheeks. _That was not what I meant._ He turned away, staring at a pine tree. Somehow he could still the other boy's face.

Sasuke giggled behind him. "Look!" he called in a light voice. "The moon."

Above the clearing the moon hung in the pines, as round and pale as white porcelain, shadowed by dark branches. "Look! Don't you see it?" Sasuke exclaimed again. "How pretty!"

At once the boy scrambled up one of the pine trees, higher and higher, until he disappeared and Naruto could not see him. But then the boy appeared again, shimmying along a branch out into the clearing. Drops of dew shook from the branch as it bent down under his weight. "Get down from there," Naruto said, annoyed.

Sasuke laughed from high overhead. "I can see all of the moon from here!" Moonlight tumbled over the boy's slender body, made his black hair gleam like silver. "It's so beautiful!"

Naruto blinked. The whore had lost his mind. "It's a big rock in the sky."

"Naruto! Naruto!" Sasuke cried suddenly, almost with tears in his voice. "Look! Just look how pretty it is! How can you sleep!"

"I was not aware that I was."

"Oh, but you are. You _are_ , ya're always sleeping. Look! Wake up, Naruto! There's never, never been such a lovely night. Never."

The slaveboy clenched his jaws in irritation. "I doubt you shall have much luck catcalling down the moon, whore," he said.

"No, Naruto, please, just look. Don't you see? The moon… it's so free. It's so happy. Sometimes… sometimes I dream I could be like that. Flying. Just flying away. Ya see? Like this." Suddenly Sasuke stood up on the pine branch, spreading his arms high over his head. The branch quivered under him.

"Enough. You'll fall."

"Maybe." Sasuke leaned his head back, tilted up on tiptoe. His voice was a whisper. "Or maybe I'll fly. How do ya know 'till you try?" And then suddenly he fell backwards off the branch, spread-eagled in the moonlight, plunging to the ground far below.

Naruto leaped with all his might. He caught the other boy in his arms just before he hit the ground. "What the fuck are you doing?" he shouted.

Sasuke's eyes were closed, as if he were asleep. But then he opened them. Jade eyes glittered, stared wickedly. "I was flying."

"You…" Naruto wanted to fling the whore away. Instead he held him tight against his chest. His heart was pounding. "You could have died! You… I don't understand you! You don't take anything seriously!"

"I do what I want." Sasuke slowly slid his arms around Naruto's neck, cupped Naruto's face in his hands. He was so close. _No. No, please._ So close. "And you want the same thing I do, don't ya?"

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered. "Sasuke, don't—"

Sasuke pressed his mouth to Naruto's. They kissed. The other boy's lips tasted like the burning wind, his tongue like madness. And then Naruto was lost, he could not fight it, he could not stop. An unbearable wild lust coursed through his blood and he dug his fingers in Sasuke's back and he forgot everything—

They kissed again, mouths shoving greedily at each other. And suddenly the two boys were rolling on the ground, limbs all entangled in the grass, and Naruto's hands were fumbling at Sasuke's robes, at his belt and then his loincloth, clutching at the pale white skin beneath. Sasuke squirmed beneath him, nimble and taut as a cat, his soft, hungry little mouth sucking at Naruto's lips, his long thin fingers sliding beneath Naruto's robe, kneading Naruto's asscheeks. Naruto moaned in pleasure.

"I want you," Sasuke panted into Naruto's ear. His voice was raw demand. "I want to… I want to wake you up…"

Somehow, between gasping, breathless kisses, they managed to tear off each other's clothes, and then Naruto was pressing down on Sasuke's naked body, his lithe bony frame, his smooth sweet skin like silk. He raked Sasuke's tangled black hair with his fingers. He buried his kisses in the hollow of Sasuke's throat and the curves of his neck. Sasuke made a whimpering sound, and the length of his hard erect penis jerked against Naruto's own. It was hot as a furnace, slick with stickiness. "Ngh!" Naruto gasped. He could not resist thrusting against Sasuke's stomach, driving his dick into that sweet flesh. He felt himself about to orgasm. "Sasuke!" he screamed.

"Ungh!" Sasuke groaned, head arching back. "Wait—"

And suddenly the other boy twisted his body, unexpectedly strong, and pushed Naruto over on his back. Naruto struggled, his pelvis thrusting upwards, but Sasuke held him down and pulled away. Naruto could see his naked erection quivering in the cool moonlight. It was engorged red with blood, glistening wet with precum. It was so hard. So hard. "Sasuke, _please_ ," Naruto cried out.

"Wait," Sasuke gasped, panting. "Not yet… I… I didn't wake ya up yet…"

"Do it," Naruto begged. "Please, _please_."

Sasuke went to work. He kissed Naruto's bare chest, bit and sucked at Naruto's small, hard nipples. Then he moved lower, kissing the boy's flat stomach, down and down, until his hands grabbed the boy's dark wrinkled scrotum, and he took Naruto's slender little dick into his mouth. The boy moaned, back pressing into the soft grass. Waves of hot pleasure shot through his groin. "Sasuke," he breathed. "Sasuke!"

Sasuke lunged down, swallowing Naruto's dick all the way to the base, then sucked his way back up the shaft, his lips wet and tight like a vise, his tongue snaking, licking. At the same time he squeezed Naruto's ballsack, fondling it with expert fingers. Naruto screamed. The taste of Sasuke's mouth on his cock was like burning fire. Again and again Sasuke went down on him, head pumping furiously. Naruto moaned, shivered in ecstasy. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again the moon was above him, round and white like a huge dead eye, and he was about to cum.

"Sasuke!" he screamed, back arching, fingers digging into the grass for purchase. "Sasuke, ugh, I can't—gonna—"

Sasuke raised his head at the last moment.

"Uh—uh—uhhhh!" Naruto groaned, clenching his groin, trying desperately to stop the orgasm. His cock jerked, spasmed a few times, but no cum came out. "Uh!" he cried out.

"Awake yet?" Sasuke asked. His full red lips smirked, as if to withhold some sort of secret. "Cuz that was just a warm up."

"You little whore," Naruto gasped, beyond reason or sense. "I'll fuck you bloody." He leaped at Sasuke, throwing the other boy down on his back.

Sasuke parted his slender bony legs, raised his thighs to either side. The crack of his open asshole stuck up to the sky. "Oh _yes_ ," he whispered, "oh, I want you, Naruto, I want you in me…" The boy slid his hands around Naruto's cock and guided him to the opening. "Take me, Naruto, yes, take me, take me and _wake up_ …"

Naruto stared into Sasuke's glittering green eyes. He could feel the boy beneath him, smell him, his skin slick with sweat, his dark oiled naked body which made Naruto so hard it hurt. A mad lust fired his blood, a hunger stronger than anything else he had ever felt in his life. "Wait," he gasped with his last shred of sanity. "Just one last thing. Promise me."

"Anything," Sasuke moaned.

"Never try to fly again."

Sasuke laughed, light and ringing, like silver chimes. Then Naruto's penis was pressing into Sasuke's anus, straining forward, and as he did so Sasuke's ass muscles clenched, the sphincter and the rectal canal all contracting at once, tight wet tissue squeezing on Naruto's dick with unbearable heat. Both of them screamed.

"So tight!" Naruto cried. "Yes! Yes!"

"Deeper!" Sasuke begged. "Deeper, Naruto!" He wrapped his calves around Naruto's shoulders, strong as steel, dragging him closer. Naruto drove his penis forward like a spear into the boy's ass. Walls of suffocating moistness yielded before him, swallowed him. _So hot, so tight!_

"Sasuke!" he screamed. "Sasssuukkeee!" Every part of him was on fire. Sasuke's fingers slipped through his own. Their hands clasped together in the grass, Naruto raking finger holds in the dirt. His ass clenched, hips thrusting deeper, deeper. Then he was staring right into Sasuke's eyes, and he bent down and kissed him hard on the lips. "Gods!" he yelled. The heat of being inside Sasuke was unbearable. His cock was being squeezed to bursting. White spots swam across the boy's vision. "I want you! _Please_ , I want you!"

Sasuke relaxed his muscles. Naruto gasped with the release, sliding himself back slowly, dragging his dick inside the moist rectum. Then suddenly he thrust forward again. Sasuke clenched his insides tightly. "Yes!" Sasuke moaned. "Yes! Naruto! Not so fast, oh, slow, yes, like that. There now, there now, yes! Harder now. _Yessss_!" Naruto slowed his thrusts, drew them out for deliberate effect. Again. Slide back, and thrust forward. Slide, and thrust. Again. Again.

The other boy gasped under him, grunting, his hips and ass and thighs bouncing in rhythm to Naruto's movements. His jade eyes fluttered, his rib bones pressed against his taut skin as he arched his back in ecstasy. His penis slapped like a stiff pink mast between their two bodies. "Naruto!" the boy cried out. "Naruto!"

"Sasuke!" Naruto screamed. He drove into Sasuke's ass, again and again. Slide and thrust. Slide, thrust. Slide, thrust, slide, thrust. He could not stop now. Faster and faster, speeding up, pounding, pounding and slamming into the other boy, shrieking with the pleasure of fucking the boy he wanted so much. _Gods, yes, this is it—_ "Now," Naruto moaned, "Now! I'm—gonna—uuuggghhhh—" A wave of heat flooded down Naruto's body, crashing against the tip of his penis in an unbearable crescendo— _this is it—this moment—_ the pressure was like a burning flood, he could not hold it back, his manhood was on fire, burning, burning, _burning_ —

_This moment—forever…_

The two boys screamed each other's names. Naruto made one final, ultimate thrust. Then Naruto exploded. The orgasm was so powerful his vision shattered into shards of white light. He felt his cock jerking inside Sasuke. Waves of hot seed shot out, splattering deep into the rectal canal, dripping back down in little rivulets across his dick. The climax passed as quickly as it came, and then Naruto collapsed, gasping. His dick slid out of the other boy with a soft wet sound.

Sasuke had ejaculated as well, right after him, the semen spurting all over both of them, sandwiched between their naked bodies pressed together. Naruto lay on Sasuke limp, panting with exhaustion. His penis was still hard. So was Sasuke's.

"Did I wake you?" Sasuke whispered.

"I don't know," Naruto gasped. "I… I think you should try again. Try… try again all night."

The night was young, and they were young as well. In the open grass, beneath the moon, the two boys fucked each other. They kissed and touched and sucked. They groaned and shrieked and whispered sweet nothings. They did everything, all the positions and tricks they knew, until at last they were spent, and they lay down in the cool spring grass and held each other. Naruto rolled on his back and let Sasuke rest on top of him. The boy's tangled black hair brushed against Naruto's cheek, his half-stiff dick was warm against Naruto's thigh. "Don't leave me," Sasuke murmured.

"I promise," Naruto whispered back. He closed his eyes, reveling in the gentle breath of Sasuke's sinuous chest, in the deep sweet musk of sweat and dew and cum on Sasuke's smooth skin. Suddenly he clutched at the other boy with a desperate strength, as if to hold him safe forever in the shelter of his arms. _I could die now, happy_ , Naruto thought, and for one long magic moment he was at peace.

"I love you," Sasuke whispered softly then.

The slaveboy shivered. "I love you, too."


	7. An Evening Demon

When Naruto woke it was already past noon, and the sun filtered through the pine trees overhead like golden rice pouring through a strain, scattering bright drops in every direction.

Sasuke was under him, his naked body warm and soft. A slight smile played on the sleeping boy's face, sweet and wicked all at once, and Naruto thought he had never seen anything more beautiful. _I love you_ , he remembered. Sasuke had spoken of love, too, that day on Shinjukame Temple. He had sung of a wanderer seeking his true love from the holy land. Naruto had not understood. _Why would a slave whore sing of love?_

And then suddenly Naruto could only hear a different voice, a different memory. Uchiha Itachi was towering over him, his eyes as luminous as they were merciless. "You do not act as a slave should," he declared in a flat dead tone. "Or have you forgotten?" And the boy had pleaded, No, please, Master, I am your tool, I live only to serve you, _please_ …

Master. The thought hit the boy with the force of an explosion.

He tumbled out from Sasuke's entangled limbs, gasping and struggling for breath. He wanted to retch. _Master. I betrayed Master Itachi_. He had done it again, and far worse than the last time. Not just a kiss, a whole night of sexual orgy. He was supposed to be looking for the Demon Fox, he was supposed to be protecting his master. Instead he had been fucking a whore. The shame and disgust coursed through the boy like a tidal wave, drowning him. Love? A mad lust, yes, some sort of demon seduction, but not love. Slaves did not love, Naruto knew. Slaves only served.

Naruto was so distraught that when he went to gather his clothes he could not even stand up. They had been scattered across the clearing, and to get them all he had to repeatedly crawl around the sleeping Sasuke. Naruto tried not to look at him. _I must never see that whore again_.

But as he was adjusting his robes and sliding his sword through his belt, on the way out of the clearing, somehow he stumbled, and there Sasuke was before him. The other boy had shifted position, so that his back and thighs and ass were pointed at Naruto. The naked skin was white as snow and tautly muscled. Naruto felt his dick begin to stiffen at the sight.

_No_. No, it must never happen again. The boy wrenched his gaze away and staggered from the clearing, as fast as he could manage. It was not very fast. The Godswood seemed to stretch beyond the end of the world, and Sawara was like an alien city, full of mazes and traps that he could not find the way out of, though he had lived there his whole life. By the time he climbed up the steps of the imperial palace it was getting dark.

One of the samurai on guard duty leered at him, an ugly stunted fellow with yellow teeth and a face like a piece of rotten cork. "Where you been, slaveboy?" he called. "Found the Demon Fox yet?"

"Fuck you," Naruto said, too tired for a witty retort.

The samurai's eyes bulged. "You dare?" He spat and drew his katana, pointing it at Naruto's chest. "You dare insult a samurai! By rights I could kill you for that, slaveboy." He turned to his fellow guards. "Or shall I make him suck my cock instead?"

The other samurai laughed uproariously. Ever since his failure to protect Admiral Hiashi, Naruto's status in the imperial pecking order had taken a crushing blow. The Warlord's anger at his slaveboy was well known, and the samurai were gleefully taking advantage of it. It was death for a slave to raise a hand against a higher caste, but suddenly Naruto was strongly tempted. _His face already has so many holes, another one won't hurt, will it?_

"You dummy," a voice piped up behind them. "Don't draw a sword if ya're not gonna use it."

Naruto turned in shock. It was Sasuke, running up the palace steps with some sort of cloth pack on his back. The boy smiled, mouth dimpling. The slaveseal on his forehead seemed to burn in the setting sun.

"What's this?" the cork-faced samurai sneered. "Another slave?"

"Ya got a problem with that? The Warlord don't. He sent Naruto to find me, 'cuz I can find the Demon Fox. We got to speak to the Warlord, now. Get out of our way… or else." Sasuke licked his lips, and when he turned to whisper in Naruto's ear his tongue crawled all along the rim of Naruto's earlobe. "Please, Naruto. Let me go with you. Don't leave me. You promised."

Naruto was dumbfounded, unable to speak. The samurai fared little better. "You… you dare!" the cork-face man sputtered. They were all watching Naruto, now, the samurai at the palace gates, the ones manning the walls, the ones in the watchtowers and in the courtyards. The great samurai of the Blood Country. They were afraid of him, he knew. He was only a slave, but his master was Uchiha Itachi.

And Sasuke? Sasuke was nobody, he was a whore, they would cut him to pieces for his insolence, and the Warlord would praise them for it.

The boy found his voice. "Fuck you," he said. "And move aside."

They obeyed. Naruto led Sasuke through the gates into the imperial palace, into a vast winding labyrinth of tight stone paths and tunneled passages. At every corner there was another checkpoint, another group of grim-faced samurai who let no one through without the proper papers. Security, already extensive, had tripled since Hyuuga Hiashi's assassination. The Demon Fox would find the Warlord a very different sort of target than the drunk admiral. Even Naruto had to produce his travel pass, though they all knew him, and many questions of Sasuke were asked.

At last they came to the gardens, at the very innermost center of the palace, an expanse of exquisitely cultivated flowers, trees, rocks, and tiny flowing streams that surrounded Birthright Keep. The red lacquered stone of the Keep shot up into the sky like an arrow, a grim solemn thing, rows of window slits spilling out light like a thousand yellow eyes. The throne room was on the ground floor of the Keep. Naruto knew his master was waiting.

But in the gardens, finally, there were no samurai guards. The two boys were alone, and Naruto could speak freely.

He whirled to push Sasuke up against a tree. Hard. "What the fuck are you doing?" he hissed.

Sasuke grinned. "Don't be mad, Naruto. I just wanted ta be close to ya. I missed you."

"If only I could say the same. This is the second time in one day I've saved your life, and you return the favor by trying to kill me instead. We know where the Kitsune is? _No we don't!_ Master Itachi does not suffer liars."

"I'm not lying."

"Then where is he?"

"In Sawara, silly." The boy shrugged, giggling. "I think."

Naruto wanted to tear his hair out. _Or choke the whore until his pretty white face turns black_. Instead he said, "You're as poor a thinker as you are a liar. I ought to let Master mount your head on a spike, only mine would certainly follow. Damnit, Sasuke. What am I do with you now?"

In the night Sasuke's eyes were like dark jade stones. "I don't know."

Naruto backed away, disgusted. _A few hours ago I swore to never see this whore again_. But that just another lie, another broken promise. Sasuke was like a cockroach in a field of shit; try as he might, Naruto could not get rid of him. "The kitchens are always in need of slave help. Might be I could find you a place… but I've got to speak to my master first. He's waiting for me. Do you understand? Just stay here. And, please, by all the gods, keep your mouth shut."

Sasuke grinned. "Even for a goodbye kiss? See ya soon, Naruto."

When the slaveboy entered Birthright Keep, the orgy had already begun. It was a writhing mass of moaning sweating human flesh, slavegirls and slaveboys and geishas and monks and samurai and nobles, the naked and the drunk and the drunk naked. Purple incense smoke swirled from a thousand candle stands. Painted slave servants offered cups of hot sake. Fat eunuchs in the corners blared out erotic music from willow tree flutes; they tried their best, but it was not quite loud enough to drown out the screams of the Warlord's orgasming guests.

_I wonder which of them will tire first, the flutes or the cocks?_ The orgy had been going on for some time, judging by the reek of accumulated semen. _The sweet smell of debauchery_. The boy could not complain; he stank of it himself. Only the Warlord Uchiha Itachi seemed above it all, sitting on his golden throne, long silver hair hanging down like icicles, cold eyes dissecting his subjects like so many wriggling swine.

And Lord Itachi was the swine herder. The Warlord ran the Blood Country on terribly strict and exacting standards, which is what made it so strong. But the baser spirits of human nature could be leashed for only so long. So every once in a while Lord Itachi would deign to grant his subjects a temporary vent of release. Most often, the vent would be a battlefield; but if there were no battles, he would give them orgies.

With some difficulty Naruto pushed through the masses of naked fucking people to the throne. "Master! I've located one of the Kitsune's hideouts." Kneeling, he explained the situation. "He or the other spies may return to the clearing. It is ripe for an ambush."

Uchiha Itachi shifted his head slightly, his face a mask of frozen iron. "Is that all?"

Minister Sougon Sawar chuckled beside the throne, red robes rustling. He was the only one in the Keep still wearing clothes, besides Naruto and the Warlord himself. "Too little and too late, Naruto," he said. "The Warlord expects you to bring him the Demon Fox's head. But you bring only words."

Naruto buried his head in the floor, thinking of Sasuke. "I'm sorry, Master. I will continue the hunt at once. May I have your leave to go?"

"Ah, but what's the rush?" a drunken voice laughed behind them. "The fun's just beginning." A very naked Namikaze Nyuka staggered into view, a slavegirl concubine dangling from his shoulder. "Lord Itachi! Oh, great Warlord of Blood! May this humble poet present you a gift." He waved his hand, and the slavegirl knelt on cue before the throne.

"Fascinating," the Minister of Coin observed. "A bloodline child."

Naruto cared nothing for any girls, but at Sawar's words his gaze whipped around, staring. And then he realized that the concubine was not human.

Not any human that Naruto had seen before, anyway. He hadn't noticed, at first; he'd thought she just had odd-looking dark skin. But now he saw it was not skin at all. _Scales_. Scales like a fish, rough and leathery and sharp to the touch. Like a shark.

"Very good, Sawar!" Namikaze Nyuka exclaimed. "A hideous little bloodline, isn't she? One of my slave ships acquired her during a raid just the other day. Comes from some island in the far east. A whole family of shark people, she claimed. Superstitious neighbors murdered her parents, and would done her in too, except… well, let's say some men have very strange tastes. Smile for me, honey."

The shark girl smiled. Her teeth were rows of daggers, a hundred jagged and pointed white arrowheads, wide enough to close on a man's head and swallow it. Naruto involuntarily recoiled at the sight, his stomach roiling. _Is this a bloodline child_?

Tales had circulated through the world for years, whispers of children with strange deformities, strange powers. A pair of twins in the Hiroi desert born with twisted hair made of glass. A girl in the Earth Country with a tongue in the palm of her hand. A boy in the central grasslands with blood the color of tree sap. And not alone, either: others of their kind, born to the same parents, to the same uncles and aunts. An entire family of inhuman monstrosities. Clans of cursed blood. _Bloodlines_.

"A mouth made for tearing things in two," said Minister Sawar. "What does the girl eat, I wonder?"

"She prefers raw meat, fish mostly. Though I feed her dick as well." Nyuka laughed, almost choking on his own drunken spittle. "Her blowjobs are most stimulating, I assure you. Would Lord Itachi care for a demonstration?"

Other drunken lords had gathered around them now, drawn to the spectacle like crows to a rotting carcass. Misain Dayu, Arashi's son and Rin's brother. Hyuuga Neji, the new leader of the Hyuuga clan. Hayate Inari, young scion of the Hayate clan. The Sabaku twins, rich silk merchants. And, of course, a large contingent of plump Zen monks, led by Maito Gai of Shinjukame Temple.

"Splendid!" Maito Gai shouted. "Splendid! Let her eat me first!" He ran toward the shark girl, his penis flopping up and down like a limp rope. When he swung it at the girl's mouth, it bounced off the teeth.

"An energetic offer, Gai-sama," Nyuka said. "But I fear not quite, ah, stiff enough. Anyone else?" The poet tittered. "Naruto! How about you?"

_Me?_ Naruto paled, coughing. He was no stranger to orgies, but this… he looked at the bloodline child. She smiled again, rows of sharp teeth glinting in the candlelight.

The nobles laughed uproariously. "Do you plan to make the poor boy an eunuch?" Sawar asked.

"Hardly." Nyuka smiled. "Well, so long as he remembers to hold very, very still."

That was one jape too much. "It seems you treat peckers the same as you treat poetry, Lord Nyuka-dono," Naruto snapped. "Slicing them to pieces, and making the rest of us scream in pain."

Hayate Inari hooted, clapping his hands. "Careful, Nyuka! The boy has a sharper mouth than the shark girl."

"My little slave forgets himself," said Uchiha Itachi.

His master's voice was soft, but it cut through the air like a steel blade through a throat. Naruto looked up, shivering. The Warlord's green eyes flashed from beneath a scarred black face. "Naruto. You forget your place. Your dick is safe tonight, but perhaps I ought to chop off your tongue instead. Sometimes you remind me of my first Naruto. Speak like this again, I warn you, and you shall meet the same end."

Naruto swallowed. The first Naruto, his master's childhood slave, had died during the Night of Blood, burned to a crisp in the remains of Uchiha Castle. _Not the finest of namesakes_. "I'm sorry, Master. Please. I live only to serve you."

"Good. Come here." As the Warlord spoke he opened his robe, spreading his thighs. Lord Itachi's penis stuck out between them, half-erect but already glistening red. He directed his gaze to the others. "And Nyuka, you shall show me this bloodline girl as well. Personally."

"This humble poet is yours to command. Oh great Itachi, I will give you a sexual symphony to last the rest of your days!"

Namikaze Nyuka almost sounded like he was dancing, but Naruto could not see him any longer. The boy had fallen to his knees before the throne and was taking his master's dick into his mouth. It was warm and salty and rubbery, filling his throat, the taste as familiar as anything else the boy had ever known in his life. A thousand times before he had done it, ten thousand. Naruto closed his eyes.

Behind him, a more exotic kind of fellatio was evidently taking place, for Nyuka was screaming. His strangled cries seemed to be both pleasure and pain. "Yes!" the poet cried. " _Yesss_!"

"Blood is running down your thigh, Nyuka," Sawar observed dryly.

"That's the fun of it, my dear minister! Yes, honey, like that, oh yes, harder! _Harder_! _Yesss_! Inari-san! Join me, won't you?"

Just then Hayate Inari shrieked, a high-pitched squeal to rival that of any virgin girl. There was much clapping and laughing in the background.

Naruto's fingers were stroking his master's testicles and his mouth plunged down the master's shaft with every one, sucking, swallowing. But the Warlord paid his slaveboy little mind. Instead he said, "Do you see, Sawar? Even the skin of the girl's hand is sharp enough to draw blood."

"Yes, like barbed sandpaper. Her handjobs are as deadly as her teeth." There was another scream, this time from yet another noble. "And she is much stronger than a normal man. One wonders if the use of these bloodline creatures has been misaligned. Sex slaves are easy to come by... inhumanly powerful soldiers, much less so."

"I remember the first time I saw a bloodline child," said Uchiha Itachi. As the man spoke his erection grew hard as iron, a huge thick sword inside the boy's throat. "Many years ago, before the Night of Blood, when my first Naruto was still by my side. A willful slave, that one. Always rebellious. Defiant. One day, during my father's last campaign against the Senju, he ran away. Thinking he would go to the enemy, I suppose. I chased Naruto to a cave in the forest. Yet when I arrived I found the cave already surrounded with dead soldiers. Hundreds. Can you guess how they died, Sawar?"

"Teeth, my lord?"

"Bones. They had been impaled by spears of bone. Bones that grew from the ground. Bones tall as trees and strong as steel. And when I went inside the cave I saw the source of them all was a dead little girl. The bones stuck right out from her like a spiderweb. My Naruto was huddled next to the girl, crying. What happened? I asked him. She killed everyone, the boy replied. And you? I asked. And he said, she would have killed me too, except her heart stopped. My slaveboy never tried to run away again."

That was when the fire started.

Naruto could not see it, at first, but he could hear the screams. They were coming from outside the Keep, cries of confusion and panic. And beneath the screams, the soft cracking hiss of flames, of ashen paper and burning wood.

"The Demon Fox, Warlord!" a fearful voice shouted. Doors were bursting open, footsteps were striking on stone. "He is in the palace! _He's coming here!_ "

For a moment Birthright Keep was as silent as a tomb. No music, no laughing, no words.

Then all at once everyone in the Keep began to scream, too, matching their voices to those outside in some kind of hideous animal chorus. And at the same moment they began to run. The bare feet of hundreds of suddenly sober people slapped the floor madly. "Lord Itachi, we must retreat!" shouted the monk Maito Gai.

For once Naruto agreed with the cowards. The boy pulled his mouth from his master's penis, tried to stand up, fumbling for his sword. "Master—"

But before he could say another word Uchiha Itachi grabbed his slaveboy by the hair, yanking him back. "Finish sucking, Naruto," said the man coldly, his eyes gleaming in the flames like emerald suns, his terrible scar as black and deep as the void at the end of the world. "I am not yet satisfied. No evening demon will interrupt me."

And even as the walls glowed with huge red flames and the air filled with the cries of desperate dying men, the Warlord Uchiha Itachi sat on his gleaming golden throne and clutched Naruto by the hair and made him finish. With every lunge of Naruto's mouth, every choking swallow of that huge rough cock, the screams came closer. "Oh, yes," the man whispered. "Oh, _yes_. An evening demon. Let him come to his fate."


	8. Heart's End

When the Demon Fox came to the throne room at last, the Warlord was climaxing. He grunted as his seed spurted in hot waves into Naruto's mouth. Naruto swallowed it all, exhausted. Then his master pushed him aside, letting him tumble to his hands and knees at the foot of the throne.

When Naruto looked up, the thick iron doors of Birthright Keep had been ripped to pieces, and the Kitsune was standing before them, a black-and-silver shadow against burning red flames.

"You," whispered the Kitsune. His voice was so soft beneath the mask that Naruto strained to hear, but there was something wild in it, something tormented. It sounded like the whimper of an animal caught in a hunter's trap.

"Me," agreed Uchiha Itachi.

The Lord of the Blood Country rose slowly from his throne, golden robes still hanging open. He did not bother to cover himself; the tip of his penis pointed out at the Demon Fox like a giant swollen finger. "It has been a long time, little fox." Itachi paused, cold eyes flicking over the ninja's body. "You were smaller thirteen years ago. And far less troublesome."

The ninja did not answer for a long moment. Then he said, "So you know."

"Know who you are? I suspected. A ninja with green eyes and silver hair. A ninja who covers his forehead with the banner of Senju Hagoromo. A ninja who wants me dead. And when I saw you… there could be no mistake." Every once in a very long while, Uchiha Itachi would actually threaten to smile; he never did, but the threat alone was terrible to behold. "Why, my dear little demon, you look just like me."

"I'm nothing like you!" the Kitsune suddenly burst out, screaming. "Nothing! You—you killed them! _You_ _killed them all, you murderer!_ "

Naruto could not decide what was more surprising: that his master knew the Kitsune's identity, or that the Kitsune was, at a most inappropriate time, starting to cry. The ninja's chest actually shook up and down with wracking sobs, and he was wiping tears from his eyes with his hands.

Naruto laughed loudly. "Are you all right, Demon Fox? You seemed to have turned into a little girl. Or perhaps a pacifist? It is a strange world where an assassin accuses someone else of murder."

"Shut up!" the Kitsune screamed. "This has nothing to do with you!"

"On the contrary. You still owe me your head." Naruto slid his sword from its scabbard as he spoke, the blade dazzling bright as it caught the firelight. A rush was in him, a storm in his blood that shouted out for revenge, for violence, for death. He could not remember why he had ever been afraid of this sniveling fool. He licked his lips and they still had the taste of his master's semen, strong and dark and sticky. _I will wash it down with your blood, demon._

His master stayed him. "No, Naruto. Stay back. The Kitsune is mine."

"But—"

"Give me your sword, Naruto." Uchiha Itachi reached over and plucked the katana out of Naruto's hands. Then he turned his gaze back to regard the ninja. "Well, little fox. What are you waiting for? There are no guards; I sent them away. My slaveboy will not interfere. It is just the two of us tonight. You will never have a better opportunity to kill me. That is what you want, isn't it? Your heart's end."

The Kitsune's green eyes glittered, wet with tears. "Tell me _why_ ," he whispered.

"Why I killed them?" The Warlord shrugged. "Because I could."

There was an impossibly long silence. It stretched on and on, broken only by the hiss of flames, the cracking of roof timbers in the blistering heat, until Naruto half-thought the Keep would burn down before the fight began. But then all at once the Demon Fox moved, digging into a pouch at his waist. In the next instant a clutch of spinning shuriken came flying at the Warlord.

Naruto did not miss the little paper tags attached to the shuriken. "Exploding tags!" he shouted in warning, throwing himself to one side. The Warlord leaped up, above their path. The shuriken struck the golden throne, exploding, blowing the ancient seat of the Birthright Emperors into a dozen pieces of twisted metal.

Meanwhile Uchiha Itachi was high in the air, long silver hair flapping, open robes billowing behind him, his naked chiseled body like bronze in the firelight. The power of his leap had taken him across the room, right over the Kitsune. Naruto exulted; no one was as strong and fast as his master. No one could stand against him.

But the ninja's fingers were flashing together in a blur of patterns. " _Katon_!" he shouted.

A fireball erupted from his face, right at Itachi.

"Master!" Naruto screamed, too far away to help.

Itachi raised two fingers before him as if in prayer. "Suiton!" At once a great torrent of water materialized from nowhere, colliding with the fireball. There was a tremendous hissing sound, and a blast of steam poured out everywhere, filling the room.

For a second Naruto could not see anything. Everything was covered in a warm fog of white, thick as milk. "Master!" he screamed again. Somewhere near he could hear the scrape of steel against steel, the ringing clash of blades. He wanted to help, but he had no weapon, and there was a pit in his stomach besides, a realization that chilled his bones. _Master can use magic. He kept it a secret from me_.

There was a scream, young and pained, followed by a dull thud against the far wall. The Kitsune. Naruto could see him now, through the fading steam. The ninja was on one knee. Blood was running from deep cuts in his chest and shoulder, and when he raised his head, his spiky silver hair was matted with ashes. "Damnit," he grunted.

"Foolish little fox," said the Warlord. The man's sword was dripping red, and his erect penis was dripping translucent white. "You are scarcely a match for my slaveboy. How can you hope to have a chance against me?"

The Kitsune ran at Itachi, screaming. Itachi turned aside the Kitsune's kunai with the flat of his blade and then whipped him in the head with his elbow. The blow knocked the ninja into the remains of the golden throne, so hard that he made a dent in the metal. The Kitsune tried to get up, but slipped. Only on the third try did he manage to stagger up. "No," the Kitsune cried out. "I won't lose! I—I waited so long—"

"I told you to run, boy. You have returned to your death." The Warlord flung his katana away, back to Naruto. "I do not need that anymore." Ever so deliberately, he began to walk toward the ninja.

" _Die_!" the Kitsune screamed. Once more he ran at Itachi.

Itachi kicked him in the groin. The ninja went down, shrieking and writhing. The Warlord was before him, a bronze giant towering over a slender, broken child. He picked up the Kitsune with his bare hands and slammed him against the ground. There was a sickening crunch as the stone floor cracked. "No!" the ninja gasped. Then Itachi picked him up and slammed him down again.

The Demon Fox did not move. He lay limp upon the floor, limbs sprawled to either side, shock of silver hair stained with blood. The Warlord's long fine locks hung down over the defeated ninja like a waterfall of ice. _They have the same color hair_ , Naruto thought, though he did not know why.

"You crushed him, Master," Naruto said. He walked over to Itachi's side, looking down at the broken assassin. "He's still breathing. May I do the honors? After all, I seem to have promised to present you the Kitsune's head."

"Very well, Naruto."

Naruto grinned and brought his sword up for the killing stroke.

And in the same instant there was a cracking sound behind them, a whistling hum the boy had heard a thousand times before.

_A crossbow!_

He twisted just in time, as one of the crossbow bolts grazed his ribs and stabbed into the far wall. The Warlord caught the other bolt in his hand. Unexpectedly, there was an explosive tag attached to it; when the Warlord tried to throw the bolt away it blew up, knocking them both hard to the ground.

Naruto coughed, black spots blanketing his vision, stumbling to his knees. _Fuck!_ There was another crack. Desperately Naruto wrenched himself back; this time the bolt grazed his ear. "Traitor!" the Warlord said from somewhere. He was coughing, too, a wracking hacking howl.

"For the Sage of Six Paths!" a man shouted in return. His voice was familiar, but Naruto could not place it. Then he looked up and he realized it was the drunk poet, Namikaze Nyuka.

The poet did not seem so drunk now. He fired another bolt from his crossbow, another and another, and every one was deadly accurate. "Kitsune!" he cried. "Run, we'll hold them off!"

That was when Naruto noticed the Demon Fox was staggering out of the doorway. _Fuck!_ he thought again. Elsewhere, somehow, Uchiha Itachi had wrapped his hand around Nyuka's throat. "You shall die for this," the Warlord declared. "Your entire clan shall be outcast—"

He would have said more, but just then he was attacked by a girl holding a giant axe. It was the slavegirl from the orgy, the bloodline child. She was unbelievably strong; as she swung the axe down, the stone block beneath split in two. "For the Sage!" she hissed in a voice as rough as her sandpaper skin.

Leaving his master to deal with the traitors, Naruto went after the Kitsune, stumbling through the doors of the Keep into the gardens outside. "You won't escape, demon!" he shouted.

The ninja did not answer. He ran instead, doing his best to prove Naruto a liar. The Kitsune was hurt, and not as fast as before, but he could still do magic. The slaveboy discovered that when the ninja ran straight up the side of a wall and down the other side. Naruto could not jump so high and was forced to find a slower way around. When he saw the Kitsune again, he feared it might be a smoke illusion, until he noticed the puddles of trailing blood. Ahead there was a high tower, untouched amid burning smoke, and a phalanx of samurai guards. "The Kitsune!" Naruto shouted to them. "Stop him!"

They ignored him, and after he came closer he saw why. The samurai were surrounded by enemies, men holding spears, and kitchen knives, and torches. In the forehead of every one was branded a black mark, the seal of the Blood Country. _Slaves_. The slaves were rising up… they were killing their masters, they were setting the entire imperial palace on fire. The sky was red with a swarm of burning cinders. Naruto would have been shocked if he had not been so intent on the chase before him. The Kitsune was just in front of him, so close Naruto could touch the ninja's shadow.

Then the Kitsune stumbled, clutching his side, and Naruto was on him. Naruto's first cut was parried, but his second sliced halfway down the ninja's forearm. The Kitsune fell back, almost losing his balance. "Damnit," he gasped.

Naruto laughed. "The taste of my blade seems not to agree with you."

"Shut up!" the Kitsune shouted. "You don't know anything, Naruto!"

"How odd. This know-nothing is about to kill you."

He attacked again, his katana a whirling storm, battering the ninja with a tornado of steel. Somehow the Kitsune held his ground, and then countered, his twin kunai stabbing, slashing, driving Naruto backward. The ninja suddenly seemed like a man possessed. "You're such a good little slave!" he shouted. "Why? He took your freedom. He beats you, he hurts you! Why do you follow him? _Why him_?"

Something had changed in the Kitsune's voice. The feral growl was gone, and in its place was something light, ringing. Something that made Naruto hesitate. "He is my master," he said.

"But you don't love him!"

Naruto's eyes widened. For an instant he was so astonished he could not move. And in that moment the Demon Fox turned, ran, and jumped off the side of the palace.

_Shit!_ The boy made to pursue, but skidded to a stop at the edge of the battlement walls. They were on the south side of the High District, facing the sea, and beyond the palace there was a sheer vertical drop, at least three hundred yards. Nothing lay below but hard, tiled rooftops. _If I jump I'll break every bone in my back_.

Regrettably, the Kitsune had not jumped; he was running down the wall instead, feet sticking to the stones with magic, a flying black shadow. "Kitsune!" Naruto yelled. There was no answer.

Naruto thought of his promise to bring back the ninja's head. He thought of his master's scarred face, cold and dead and merciless. And he thought of Sasuke, Sasuke whispering in his ear, begging him not to leave. Jumping off the wall was likely death, but if he had learned one thing from Uchiha Itachi, it was that there were far worse fates than death. If he let the Kitsune escape again, he would wish he had never lived.

The slaveboy jumped.

Like a screeching beast the wind rose up to meet him, a pounding near as loud as Naruto's own beating heart. The stones of the palace flashed by in a blur. His eyes were burning, they were ablaze with blood. He could see the Kitsune below, on the rooftops, a pinprick that became a black silver giant. " _Kitsune!_ " the boy screamed with his last, desperate breath, and brought his sword down.

The ninja looked up.

"You dummy!" he shouted, and leaped in the air right at Naruto. Naruto had expected the ninja to dodge, not to fly at him, and his katana slashed at empty space. There was a crunch as their bodies collided, and then Naruto's momentum carried them both downwards, through a roof and then hard against a wooden floor. Naruto rolled and tumbled violently until at last he struck a stone statue, his head slamming the marble so hard it cracked. He groaned, utterly stunned. His vision was a black haze. Everything was going cold, and he knew he had only a moment of consciousness left.

Something was on top of him. It was heavy and warm, and when he shook his head, he saw it was the Kitsune. Glittering eyes stared down into his own, large and gleaming like a cat's, as green as jade. "Did I return the favor now, Naruto?" the Kitsune whispered. Naruto didn't understand. What favor had he ever given the Kitsune? But there was something wrong. _Something…_ _those eyes…_ The ninja giggled. "You made me promise not to fly, but you don't take your own advice."

Naruto was blacking out, but he had to see. With his last strength he pulled at the Kitsune's mask, and the cloth tore. And then he saw the Kitsune's true face.

_Bloody hell, I've been fucking the Demon Fox_ , Naruto had just time enough to think. Then the darkness took him.


	9. The Master's Shadow

The boy dreamed, as he so often did, of his master.

Everything was in darkness, everything was cold and sticky and stank of death. The boy could not breathe, the heap of corpses was suffocating him. He screamed. Then all at once strong hands grabbed him by the waist. He felt himself being lifted. Dazzling white light erupted everywhere, stinging his eyes.

" _Shhh_ ," his master whispered. His voice was iron, and the boy yielded before it. " _Don't cry_."

Other voices bubbled around them, a droning the boy could not make out. A dark shape came over him, dimming the light, and he saw it was the face of a man. There was a scar, all over his forehead, charred and terrible. But the darkness comforted the boy. The sudden light was too much, and the master's shadow made him feel safe. " _Strong boy. Clinging to life_ ," his master said as he cradled him. The words echoed, piercing him to the heart, to the most hidden places. " _I shall keep you… as my slave…_ "

When the boy woke, the wind was whispering.

Naruto groaned, feeling the ache in his back and his chest and limbs. His every muscle was sore, and his head pounded something fierce. Only as he staggered to his feet did he realize it was not the wind he was hearing, but a song.

He recognized it.

The other boy was leaning against the ruins of a stone wall. His eyes were closed and it almost seemed like he was sleeping, except that his mouth moved, and music came out.

 _As ye came from the holy land_  
_Of Shinjukame,_  
_Met you not with my true love  
_ _By the way as you came?_

 _How should I know your true love_  
_That have met many anon_  
_As I came from the holy land,  
_ _That have come, that have gone?_

 _But, sir, true love is a durable fire,_  
_In the mind ever burning,_  
_Never sick, never dead, never cold,_  
 _From itself never turning._

_I tell ye, love is a careless child,_   
_And forgets promise past,_   
_He is blind, he is deaf when he list,_   
_And in faith never fast._

_Know my true love hath my heart_   
_And I have his own,_   
_But what conscience has love,_   
_Which is too young to know?_

For a moment, in thrall to that innocent, near childlike voice, Naruto was not sure whether he was awake or asleep, whether last night had been reality or a dream.

But then the other boy turned, silver hair whipping in the breeze, and Naruto stared into Sasuke's eyes, glittering green like a cat's.

_No. No, not like a cat. Like a bloody fox._

"Watcha' looking at?" Sasuke asked, smirking. "Don't ya like my new hairstyle?"

"No."

"Too bad. It's my real color, ya'know. I dyed my hair black."

"You—you…" Naruto trailed off, at a loss. What could he say? He went to grab his sword instead, sure that cold steel would make him feel better. It was not there.

Sasuke giggled. "Still tryin' to cut off my head? How silly."

"You… you used me!" Naruto blurted out. Even he did not know where the words were coming from. "You said you loved me! You goddamn liar! You only wanted to get into the palace! I was just your whore!"

The other boy looked surprised. "It's not like that."

"You didn't care at all!"

"Naruto…" Sasuke jumped to his feet and started walking toward him. "Naruto, listen. If I was only using you, I would've let ya split your back open when you tried to fly. Look at me."

Naruto did not want to look, but by then Sasuke was far too close. He was still wearing his ninja garb, but stripped to the waist; bloody bandages covered his upper body and neck and forehead. Where they did not, nasty bruises poked out. It occurred to Naruto he ought to have bruises, too, and when he felt under his kimono he was startled to touch soft bandages instead.

"That's what I get for savin' you," Sasuke continued. "A couple of busted ribs and more bruises than I can count. Okay?" Sasuke was right next to him now, close enough he could feel Sasuke's breath on his lips. He slowly slid his arms around Naruto. "Please, Naruto. I love you."

 _And I love you_. Naruto had said that, not two nights ago. But that had been to the slave whore Sasuke, to a stupid, harmless, innocent boy. Not to the Demon Fox. "You're a spy!" he said, trying to push the ninja away. "An assassin. A heretic."

"Guilty as charged." Sasuke's tone was mocking, his smirk insolent and wicked. His eyes flashed beneath silvery shadows. "What'll it be, then, slaveboy? Will ya kill me? Or make love to me?"

Sasuke kissed him. Naruto wrenched himself free. "No. Stop."

The other boy ignored him. His tongue licked Naruto's cheek and down his neck. His long fingers raked Naruto's shoulders. "Stop!" Naruto gasped again. Sasuke was strong, but so was he, and he did not have a gigantic wound across his chest. _I should let the Kitsune kiss me, and while he does, I'll snap his neck_.

The thought was left hanging when Sasuke pushed him to the ground and Naruto's body betrayed him. All notions of murder vanished as Sasuke pressed into him, groaning and squirming, his erect dick driving into Naruto's own. Both of them were too far gone, too injured, to do much of anything, but somehow they managed to pull off each other's loincloths. Sasuke wrapped his arms around Naruto's chest, and thrust himself violently against Naruto's stomach. Their naked penises rubbed together, hard and hot and tight. Sasuke screamed. "Yes!" Naruto gasped. His mind was on fire with pleasure. "Yes, Sasuke, please!"

"Naruto!" Sasuke moaned.

It was over far too quickly. Naruto arched his back, groaning, thrusting upward, and then his dick jerked and spurts of semen squirted out. Sasuke came a few moments later. They lay there for a while, panting, savoring the sensation of their cum mixing together between them. Finally Sasuke grunted, and rolled off to lie in the dry grass.

Some sort of red stain was leaking into the grass beneath Sasuke. Naruto did not understand, until he realized it was blood. Sasuke's wounds had been reopened by the exertion of the sex; the Kitsune was more hurt than he looked. _I should kill him_.

Instead the boy turned away, to stare at other things. For the first time he noticed where they were. Great slabs of crumbling stone loomed above them like melted fingers, broken towers and collapsed roofs and buried statues, choked all over with vines and moss. Below them, sloping down from the stone ruins, was an empty rocky shore, and the Endless Sea beyond. A breeze blew from the sea, sharp and silent. Naruto felt a lonely chill pass over him, and a yearning for human warmth.

"This is Uchiha Castle," he said.

"Yeah," said Sasuke. He sat up, craning his head to stare at the cloudless blue sky. "What do ya know 'bout it?"

What did he know? For centuries Uchiha Castle had been the ancestral fortress of the Uchiha clan, first as the all-powerful Shoguns to the Birthright Emperors, and then as Warlords in their own right. It was burned down in the Night of Blood, when Senju Hagoromo the Butcher, under pretense of a wedding to Uchiha Sakura, massacred the entire Uchiha clan. Itachi, the only survivor, abandoned the castle, deciding to make his seat of power in the old imperial palace instead. Henceforth the castle and its surrounding ruins were informally known as the Haunted City. And so it had been for thirteen years.

But he did not say that. "It strikes me that I should be the one asking questions, not you."

Sasuke nodded. "You want to know about me. About the attack last night. About your master. I'll tell ya, Naruto. Everything. That's why I brought you here. But I've got to start at the beginning. It's gonna take time."

"Then don't waste it. Go on."

"Just remember one thing." Sasuke's eyes gleamed, and then they were not his eyes, but those of the Kitsune, feral and anguished. "This isn't my story. This is the story of my brother."

Naruto felt a sudden chill run down his spine. "Your brother?"

"Yes. My brother… Uchiha Itachi…"


	10. The Slave's Tale: Sins of Blood, Part One

I remember the first time Father takes me to see the tapestry under Uchiha Castle. I'm only three, and I don't want to be there, it's so cold and all I want is to stay in bed and eat rice cakes and listen to Mother sing me a song.

But I can't tell Father that.

If I tell Father he'll be angry.

Father's like a demon when he's angry, Mother says. Sakura doesn't agree. Sakura says that Father eats demons and then shits them out afterward, no easy task, which is why he spends so much time in the privy. I ask Sakura what a shit is, but she only laughs and pokes me in the forehead. _A secret_ , she'll whisper. _Don't you know, Itachi? That's what big sisters are for._ Sakura is my big sister, but I don't think she's much good for anything.

"Itachi!" Father yells. I know I haven't been paying attention to what he's been saying. I look guilty.

"Itachi!" Father says again. "What is this?"

I try to concentrate. In front of me there's this big, old piece of cloth hanging on the wall. I know it's old because it smells like my grandmother, before she went away in the spring and never came back. There are funny scribbles all over it, connected by slanted lines. I guess it sort of looks like a sideways tree, all the branches growing from right to left. The thought of a tree falling down makes me giggle.

"Itachi!"

"Sorry, Father."

Father is angry. I'm scared he'll hit me again, but he just frowns. "This is the tapestry of the Uchiha clan. The history of our family. Do you understand, Itachi?"

"Yes, Father," I lied.

"Thirty generations of Uchiha, stretching all the way back to the founder of our clan, Uchiha Madara himself. Thirty generations of glory!" Father points with his fingers at the scribbles on the cloth. "Madara, the first Shogun of the Birthright Empire, my namesake. His son Sasori, Shogun after him. Sasori's daughter Kurenai the Lark, who married the Emperor. And on and on, Shogun after Shogun, then, after the fall of the Empire, Warlord after Warlord. And now, my son, all the way to you." Father points to a squiggle at the very end of the cloth. "There. Go on, Itachi. Touch it. That's you."

The squiggle is a woven thread of gold, cold and scratchy beneath my fingers. It's nothing like me. But I know it's important, and I want to say something nice. "It's pretty."

Father is angry again. "Pretty? It is your destiny. It is your _name_ , my son."

I don't understand. "My name is Itachi."

"No!" My father seizes my shoulders suddenly. "Not your chosen name. Your bloodname! The name of the Uchiha. Do you understand? The blood that flows through your veins, the blood of Warlords and Shoguns and even of the divine Emperors. This is who you are, this is your destiny. Your birthright. And one day, my son and heir, it shall all be yours. You shall be what was denied to the Uchiha these many years. You shall be the conqueror of all the world." Father's voice is as rough as a saw on stone. "One day you shall be Emperor."

Father is staring at me with dark green eyes. I guess I should say something, so he won't be angry, but I don't know what.

Just then there's a sound behind us. Father turns. "What are you doing here, slaveboy?"

It's Naruto. My slave. My first slave, Father says, given to me on the day of my birth. And his birthday, too, which makes him the same age as me. Naruto lowers his head, so I can't see his face, only his bright red hair and the big twisted cross slaveseal on his forehead. "I… I'm sorry, Master Madara."

Naruto is smart. He knows Father's angry, too. But that doesn't stop Father from slapping him, so hard the boy stumbles and falls to the stone floor. Naruto cries in pain. Father picks up Naruto by his hair. "Why are you here?" he asks again.

"I… I was following you…" Naruto gasps. "Master Itachi… he said you were gonna take him somewhere special…"

"I see. And you wanted to go, too. You wanted to be like Itachi. Is that right?" Father slaps Naruto again, this time into the far wall. "It's past time you learned, Naruto. You're a slave. We are your masters. We are the Uchiha! And you will never be like us. Come to this place again, boy, and I'll break every bone in your body before I feed you to the ravens." Father's gaze turns on me. I'm standing in the corner, frightened and feeling bad. "Take care he learns his lesson. We're finished for the day." Then he turns and walks up the winding stairs, back into the gray stone halls of Uchiha Castle.

I walk over to Naruto. "You shouldn't have done that," I tell him.

Naruto stands up, rubbing his bruised cheeks. His eyes are wet but he's not crying. "I know."

"It's just a stinky old cloth, anyway."

My slaveboy stares at the wall where the huge cloth hangs. "No. It's the tapestry of the Uchiha clan. It's your history, Master. It's why I'm a slave… and you're not."

I think about that. But Naruto is too smart for me. "Whatever," I shrug, laughing. "Let's get out of here. I'm hungry and the cooks can make us rice cakes!"

-X-

I'm not an idiot. Not like everybody says. It's just sometimes I'm dense and I don't notice stuff.

But even I can't miss it when Sakura comes out of the birthing room with a pale face, white and still as ice. And that's when I know my baby brother is dead.

Haku, Mother named him, after the great Uchiha Shogun. But Uchiha Haku is stillborn, he's born too early and never takes his first breath. "It was not his time," Sakura says to us. "Haku has returned to the mountains beyond the clouds."

Father is in an rage.

"It's that slavewoman, damn her!" he shouts. "I should have slit Kushina's throat when I had the chance."

"Kushina is the best midwife in all Sawara," Sakura says. "It was not her fault. Father, I beg you—"

"I shall feed her to the ravens, as payment for my dead son. Perhaps I will give them Kushina's son as well."

Naruto is Kushina's son. I'm six, old enough to understand that, and that my father is going to kill him for no good reason. Naruto is my slave, Father says, but he's also my best friend. We go everywhere and do everything together. I start to cry.

Sakura is crying too. Sakura is twelve, twice as old as me, but she's already a woman. I know that by the way Father and Mother look at her and listen when she speaks. She speaks well enough that Father decides to spare Naruto's life. But for Kushina he won't change his mind. Kushina must die.

She will be sacrificed on the day of Haku's funeral. Mother is still too sick to get out of bed, so Sakura is the one who works through the night to prepare the ceremonial offerings, which no slave is fit to do. I watch her as she wraps the rice cakes with one hand, fingering back her long silver hair with the other. I think she looks like the moon, pale and beautiful and so far away.

Kushina looks like a mad dog, when the guards drag her from the dungeon and stake her to the temple ground in front of Uchiha Castle. It's cold there, right by the sea with the dawn wind blowing in my face, and I don't like it. I like it even less when Kushina starts to scream. She is a fierce woman, with red hair and even redder lips. Sakura tells me that Kushina used to be a high blood lady, before I was born. A matriarch of the Kaguya clan, with her own country and her own slaves. But my father came with his great army and destroyed the Kaguya clan and Kushina became a slave.

Naruto, when he was born, became a slave too.

Kaguya Kushina is screaming for her son. Naruto isn't there. I think Sakura ordered the servants to keep him away so that he wouldn't have to see.

I don't want to see, either. I want to look away, but Father won't let me. He is hard and cruel and he wants me to be like him. Like a Warlord, like an Emperor.

I hate him. If this is my birthright, then I don't want to be Emperor at all.

Kushina is stripped naked and the guards pour honey over her. The ravens are already circling above the waves of Fire Fan Bay, and now they come down in a swarm. They cover her body in black wings. They start to eat.

It takes far longer than I expected.

Afterwards the Zen monks come and burn my dead baby brother on a pyre. The smell is horrible. Then the fat monk Maito Gai says the funeral words. I try to look at him and not look at the white bones of Kushina which are still scattered on the rocks:

_Fleeting alas are moments,_   
_subject to rise and fall._   
_Having begun, they cease;_   
_their subsiding is bliss._

My father comes forward, my sister, leading me by the hand. On the rocky bluffs of Uchiha Castle we grab fistfuls of ashes and fling them outwards over the dark water, into the Endless Sea.

-X-

Our family is never the same after Haku's death. The doctors tell my mother that she can never have a child again. She doesn't talk about it, but I can see that she is very sad. Her hair goes pale gray and she doesn't sing to me anymore.

My father becomes angrier. "You are my only heir," he says, "you will always be my only heir."

I know this means that I disappoint him. I'm not clever, like him. The tutors teach me about history or battlefield tactics and my mind ices over. I'm no good with books.

I'm better with swords, though I don't like them, either. With my strength and height I do okay in sparring matches. But not up to the standards of the great Warlord Uchiha Madara, my father, who slew five men in single combat when he was as old as me.

"You are my heir," he says to me again, "because I cannot prove that you are not mine. You look like me, sure enough. Right down to the lines on my face. But you have your mother's soft heart, her woman's weakness. Itachi. You have not the killer instinct of a man."

It's true. I like to play pranks, to steal rice cakes and hide Sakura's makeup in the castle statues so that she'll shout at me. I like to make people laugh. I can fight okay, but I can't kill. Blood makes me sick, even the blood of the chickens and pigs that only the outcast slaves are allowed to touch. The blood of men is too much for me. I wonder if this is why Father has never taken me on any of his wars.

"It doesn't matter," Naruto tells me. "One day you'll be Warlord, Master Itachi. Then you can do whatever you want."

I'll only be Warlord if my father is dead. I'm not as smart as Naruto, but this I understand.

"And you can do what you want, too," I say. "I'll free you. You won't be my slave."

Naruto doesn't look at me when I tell him things like that. He lowers his eyes and I can only see the tangle of scruffy red hair which curls all over his face. So unlike my straight silver hair. So like his mother's.

Kushina's execution changes Naruto, too. He never laughed much before, but now he barely laughs at all, try as I might to amuse him. With me, he still speaks his mind, but around everyone else he's so careful, even Sakura. He acts like a perfect slave. I think he's scared of being killed.

He's scared of Father.

One day Naruto tries to run away.

He doesn't tell me. He steals a horse from the stable and tries to ride off along the Sohkaido Road, the main road between Sawara and Yayoi, the desert city at the other end of the Blood Country. In the desert there's freedom. But Naruto doesn't get far before he's caught. He's only nine, and the slaveseal on his forehead gives him right away.

Naruto is brought back to the castle in chains. He's angry, struggling, but when Father appears all of Naruto's strength goes away. We all know the punishment for slaves that try to escape. I plead for Naruto's life, but Father doesn't listen. Father takes Naruto by the chains and drags him down into the dungeons.

I don't see him again for weeks. It's an unexpected sight: I see Naruto walking down the steps from my father's bed chambers. I expect to see him covered in bloody bruises, but it's not so. His bony frame is thinner than usual, his hair even more tangled, but he's not injured.

Only he's crying. The first time I've ever seen him cry.

"Naruto! What did he do to you?" I ask.

My best friend, my slave, only shakes his head. He whispers. "One day, Master Itachi, you'll be Warlord."

-X-

Every night, as long as Father is in Uchiha Castle, Naruto goes up to Father's room and doesn't come down until it's very late. I don't know why and he never tells me. My father doesn't hit him, but sometimes I see bleeding down his legs.

Sakura knows, but she won't tell me either.

One winter Sakura takes us both on a trip to the lakes of Caiaden up north, where it's warmer. Father is away in the Wood Country on a campaign against the Senju clan, our enemies. He's away more and more now because the war is going badly. Me and Naruto are both thirteen, and Sakura is a woman grown. Everyone says that she is very beautiful. _My silver swan_ , our mother calls her. And sometimes, when Mother thinks I don't hear, she says, _fly away, Sakura, fly away and never come back_.

Sakura has been to Caiaden before. She takes long walks along the forested lakes with her friend Rin, of the high blood Misain clan. There's a lot of sun and they like to twirl little paper umbrellas to keep their skin white. I like to steal the umbrellas so they can't find them.

Naruto is not amused. "You're so childish, Master Itachi."

"Am not!" I say back.

"You act like you're still six. You're old enough to marry now. To lead a war."

"I know that."

"You're a child because you don't know what you want."

"I want to be Warlord. I want to be the Emperor. The greatest Emperor!"

Naruto looks away so I can't see the slaveseal on his face. We're sitting by a long rainbow colored lake, dipping our toes into the cool water, making ripples on the surface. I don't know what to say to him. We used to play hide and seek, samurai and pirate, we used to run all over the castle giggling. Even after his mother died. But Naruto doesn't like to play games anymore. Sakura taught him to read, and all he does now is study books.

We look a lot alike. Not our hair, but we're the same height, the same weight. On our last birthday, when Mother prepared a special jar of sake for me, Naruto got his own little sip of sake, too. We looked at each other then. I looked into his face, and it was like looking into a mirror. A mirror with a slaveseal.

"How can you be Emperor," Naruto says, "if you're an idiot?"

Suddenly I'm angry. "Don't underestimate me! Everyone does—Father, Mother, even Sakura. Not you too. You're supposed to be my friend!"

"I'm not your friend." Naruto's green eyes are bright as the overhanging leaves. "I'm your slave."

"Not to me."

"We were born on the same day, but Master Madara only held one of us in his hands. We eat at the same table, but I'm the one who fetches the meal and I'm the one who waits for you to finish before I can start. We sleep in the same room, but I'm the one who wakes up at dawn to light the candles and lay out your clothes. For what? For a bloodname you have and I don't. Not for any other reason. Not because you're smart, or strong. I'm smarter and stronger than you, Itachi. If we'd been switched in the cradle, if you were born in the dungeons instead of me, I would be the pride of the Uchiha, and you would be nothing. Mistress Sakura told me so."

I hit him.

He doesn't dare strike back. No slave would ever do that. Naruto just cups a hand to the side of his face, where the bruise is growing. Then he begins to laugh.

-X-

Later Sakura says that the two of us shouldn't fight.

She tells me, "Naruto's just upset. Rightly so. It's all very hard on him."

"He said that I should be his slave!"

We're sitting in the cottage's reception room, surrounded on three sides by screens of white and pink flower blossoms. Through an open sliding door I can see the lake shimmering outside. A breeze blows in the scent of clean water and fresh fallen leaves.

"Oh, little brother. He didn't mean it. You must have noticed that Naruto is not like the other slaves. Father allows him to stay close to our family."

I frown. "So what?"

"So there's a reason. Do you understand, Itachi?"

I don't.

Sakura sighs, before she smiles. "Perhaps it's for the best." Then she pokes me in the forehead.

"He's coming!" a high squeaky voice calls. It's Misain Rin, poking her head through the door. Peacock feathers are arranged in her dark brown hair like a rainbow halo. They catch the sunlight, and Rin glows.

But I'm wrong. Rin is just a shadow of the man who enters the cottage next.

This man is a torch.

He's a huge man, almost seven feet tall, twice my height. His skin is bronzed and his large eyes are burning gold. As golden as his thick hair drawn back in a braid. He's dressed in a brown tunic and pants, like a low born hunter, but I know that he's not. I know this is a man of great power.

I've never seen anyone like him.

Sakura stands up. She smooths her red robes and her flowing silver locks. "Itachi, I want you to meet someone very special to me. We met at Caiaden last year."

The man's voice is a deep wooden drum. "My name is Hagoromo," he says.

The words don't register on me. But then another sound comes from the stairs. "A name without a bloodname is no name at all." It's Naruto, stepping down into the room. "A slave name. I know you, m'lord. You are Otsutsuki Hagoromo. _Senju_ Hagoromo."

Hagoromo looks back at him with golden eyes. "Yes, boy. I am here to change the world."


	11. The Slave's Tale: Sins of Blood, Part Two

Sakura tells us that she and Hagoromo are in love. They are going to marry, no matter what anybody says. Even though Hagoromo is the heir to the Wood Country. Heir to the hated Senju clan that the Uchiha have been fighting for hundreds of years.

I am heir to the Uchiha. Soon we'll be fighting, the two of us.

Hagoromo says no. He says that a wedding between our two clans will make peace. He has the trust of his father Senju Sarutobi, and Sakura has the trust of our father. Hagoromo says that together we will create a new era for humanity. A world without war. A world without warlords.

Hagoromo talks a lot. He gives me a headache. Sakura seems very fond of him, though. She and Hagoromo like to hold hands a lot, and also write poems to each other.

On the way back to Sawara, riding separate horses, they'll scribble words on rolls of rice paper and then give it to me or Naruto to deliver to the other. Sometimes I read them first. I don't really understand what they mean but I pretend I do.

Hagoromo writes,

_The blossoms are seen_  
_Even by the eyes of the poor:  
_ _Lonely beauty._

Sakura replies,

_Has spring come_  
_Or has the year gone?  
_ _Second-to-last-day._

To which Hagoromo says,

_Awake at night—_  
_The sound of the water jar  
_ _Cracking in the cold._

Sakura giggles and writes,

_The dragonfly_  
_Can't quite land  
_ _On that blade of grass._

Then Hagoromo smiles and finishes off,

_Summer grass—_  
_Before you come,  
_ _I'll hunt out the snakes._

And then the poetry is done for the day. We stop at a inn along the dusty Sohkaido Road and the two of them disappear off to a private room. Sometimes Hagoromo will come out to lecture me and Naruto about justice.

"Justice is the burden of leadership," he says one night. "Even in this land of evil, it must be so. For a great change is coming. Men are changing, they learn to harness the power of their own spirits—a power far greater than any master's whip. And so shall society change with men. But the question remains. How shall our land change? The rotten edifice of slavery crumbles—yet what new foundation shall rise up in its wake? The burden falls on us, Itachi. Do you understand? We shall till this barren land until justice come rising up everywhere and grows into a great eternal forest of hope."

"Is that why you want to be the Birthright Emperor?" I ask.

Hagoromo smiles. "I do not want to be Emperor."

"Father says you do. The Senju clan, I mean. That's why he invaded your country."

"Our fathers are blood enemies, I confess it. But we are not enemies, Itachi. Soon we shall be brothers."

"If Master Madara consents to the marriage," says Naruto. Naruto speaks openly, just like he'd talk to me. I think he's not scared of Hagoromo because Hagoromo isn't his master. "Which he won't."

"Uchiha Madara is not the only voice in the Uchiha clan. When I arrive in Sawara I mean to find the others."

"Only Mistress Kyoki has any influence. But she's bedridden ever since she lost her second son during birth, and barren."

"Mother is sick," I add. Naruto looks at me. Then I realize I'm just repeating what he already said. I must be an idiot.

Senju Hagoromo stares down at us. He looks like a statue, doesn't say anything. Suddenly I remember that Hagoromo's mother, the famous southern princess Otsutsuki Kaguya, had died giving birth to him. So Hagoromo never had a mother growing up. Dim shadows flicker across the paper walls of the inn, like demon shapes. It's late and the candles in the room are almost all burned away.

"Do you know the poem about sin, Hagoromo-dono?" Naruto asks suddenly. "The one by Kishimo Jiraiya?"

"One of my favorites." Nodding, the man from Senju speaks it out loud:

" _And now it goes as it goes  
and where it ends is Fate.  
And neither by bathing flesh,  
nor tipping cups of wine  
__nor shedding burning tears can you  
__wash away the Sins of Blood."_

"Why do you like it?" Naruto asks.

"It is a poem about justice."

"And what is justice?"

"To each, what he is owed." Hagoromo's bright yellow eyes glitter like a fire is burning there, a fire I can't see. I'm frightened. "That is the fate I shall bring to this world."

"You're very confident."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I have seen it. The wheel of fate turns and bends men to its ultimate purpose. Some souls are cursed, damned to torment over and over again. Others are blessed, and these ones hold greatness in their hands like the sun. Our lives show our fate, as the childhood shows the man. As the morning shows the day. It is karma—there is no escape."

"No." It is Naruto. "No. There's no fate but what we make."

Hagoromo considers that. "You also are very confident, slaveboy." He strokes a hand slowly along his bronzed chin. "And what is your fate?"

Naruto doesn't answer.

-X-

Senju Hagoromo comes to Uchiha Castle in secret. It's early spring and Sawara is covered in cherry blossoms. My mother is in the garden courtyard, sitting in a wicker chair facing the sea, when Sakura leads in our guest to see her.

"Kyoki-sama," says Hagoromo, bowing low. He is disguised as a traveling medicine man, but now he removes his hat and the veil across his face. "Do you know me?"

I think Mother will faint, but she's stronger than I expect. Her hair is gray, and her skin, but she straightens up in the chair. Pink cherry blossoms fall softly in her lap. "What is this man doing here?" she whispers.

"This man shall be my husband, Mother," my sister says. "He has come to save our family."

Hagoromo speaks many words. I've heard them all before, and I still don't know if I can believe them. But Sakura does, and that's good enough for me. I trust Sakura, more than I trust Father, and I don't trust myself.

Naruto says that he believes Hagoromo, too.

"Madara will never agree to those terms," says Mother when Hagoromo is done. "The war is going badly for the Uchiha, yes. But my husband is a prideful man. He may agree to a ceasefire between Blood and Wood, but not to a restoration of the old borders."

"An Uchiha, Madara-sama's grandson, will be the heir to the throne of the Wood Country."

"A half-Senju grandson. The Warlord will not agree."

"Do you agree?"

At this Mother pauses, brushing the cherry blossoms off her lap. Then she smiles faintly. "Of course, I always agree with my husband, as any wife should. Is this not so, Sakura?"

Sakura laughs. "But sometimes a husband does not know to what he agrees."

"Just so." Mother closes her eyes as the sea breeze flutters her hair. "We must talk in the future, Hagoromo-kun."

The man bows. "Let me leave you a gift, Kyoki-sama. To prove my sincerity."

He raises his hands, and suddenly his hands are glowing.

I'm stunned. I rub my eyes, but I still see what is impossible. Hagoromo's hands are blazing with an aura of golden fire, just like the gold in his eyes and in his hair.

"This is spirit magic," the man says. His words echo in the garden from tree to tree. "Healing magic. Chakra. Do not be alarmed."

Then he places his hands on Mother's belly. Mother gasps, and I yell and try to run over, but Sakura stops me. "It's okay, Itachi." Now our mother is glowing too, where Hagoromo touches her. A few minutes, maybe, and then Hagoromo pulls his hands away. The golden magic around him disappears.

"My body," my mother says, smiling. She stands up. "I'm healed."

"Your body, and your womb."

"I was infertile."

"No longer, Kyoki-sama. Please inform Uchiha Madara that I have given him two sons this day." Hagoromo puts back on his medicine man hat. "One more by birth, if you wish it. And another by marriage, if he will have me. My offer to the Uchiha clan stands."

Then Senju Hagoromo is walking away, out the castle garden, Sakura close behind him.

I stare after him with an open mouth.

-X-

Father is furious when he returns.

Father tries to lock Sakura up in the highest tower of Uchiha Castle. Mother does not stand for it, but Sakura agrees not to leave the castle without his permission.

"I will destroy this Senju boy who has defiled my daughter!" Father vows. He shakes his head in anger, hair flying about in silver bolts. "I will destroy the country of these wood bastards and feed their rotting hearts to the ravens."

And to me he says, "You will accompany my banner, Itachi. You have been under the influence of these soft women too long. It's past time you know the battlefield, know the war which is your birthright. I have been wrong to hide you from it."

When I protest, Father beats me. I have no choice.

We leave Sawara in the summer, at the front of a massive army. I've seen a lot of them, but this is the biggest ever. Father has called in all the lords and clans and samurai in the Blood Country. All their armor is painted red and black, the colors of the Uchiha, and everywhere soldiers are holding up our flags, like a sea of twisted black crosses. I wear armor, too, dark lacquered samurai plates studded with rubies in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. "The Young Raven! The Young Raven!" soldiers shout as I ride by in the procession. It was made by a famous Sawara blacksmith special for me.

But I am nothing next to my father. I am a boy of thirteen, and Uchiha Madara is the greatest samurai in the world. Father's armor is battle tested, famous for all the men he has killed with it. It is made of silvered dreamsteel and crimson enamel and diamonds. The chest and helm are formed in the shape of a dragon, the ancient symbol of the Birthright Emperors themselves. His sword is shaped like a dragon's deadly claw. When he unsheathes the sword Kusanagi from its scabbard, the entire army roars, beating their swords and spears. The sound's so loud I want to cover my ears.

I am scared of Father's armor. I am scared of him. His flat iron voice, his tall chiseled frame, his flowing silver hair like a frozen glacier. His dark eyes as cold as buried emeralds. Everyone says that I look like him, but I don't see it.

I see a man that I hate. A man that I wish I could be.

Father waves around his sword Kusanagi and gives the signal to march. We move out the northern gates of Sawara, first along the Sohkaido Road and then east to the Wood Country. Father wants to invade and sack the Senju capital city, Kiushu. We've invading with all the forces in the Blood Country. I'm not very smart, but even I know that if we lose this campaign, then the war will be lost.

Naruto comes along, too. He wears the simple black robe of a servant, with the symbol of the Uchiha clan stitched on the back. And the same symbol branded on his forehead, too. No slave is allowed to carry weapons.

-X-

My father leads his army into the forests. The woods are endless, surrounding us, with branches and leaves and the strange sounds of birds. I've never seen trees so big. I miss the smell of the sea.

We pass some empty villages. There is no resistance, no Senju armies that meet our invasion.

"They're waiting to ambush us," Naruto tells me. Naruto knows these things from books. "Senju Sarutobi is a master strategist. He won't attack until our supply lines are stretched and he can flank our army from the west."

"Father is a great general, too."

"Yes, but he's in enemy territory. Master Madara has invaded the Wood Country many times, and he's lost four battles out of five."

I don't like Naruto talking about Father that way. "Do you think we'll lose?"

"I think Master Madara should accept Hagoromo-sama's offer. A marriage alliance with the Senju will allow us to turn our attention to our enemies in the north. The Moon Country and the Iron Country remain formidable. We can consolidate our strength, and then, if the Senju remain troublesome…"

I have trouble following him. Naruto speaks in such big words, and his thoughts are so big, too. Like Itachi the Calculator. I'm no good at calculating.

"I don't think we'll lose," I say.

My slaveboy is quiet for a while. Then he shakes his head. "War isn't about winning or losing. Not for people like me. I made myself a promise, back in Sawara. I said that I wasn't going to die. Are you, Master Itachi?"

"No."

"Then you won't lose."

_There's no fate but what we make_ , I remember Naruto telling Hagoromo.

His words give me strength.

I'm sleeping in my tent when the first battle comes. It's very sudden. Screams everywhere, shouting in the night. Naruto scrambles to help me put on my armor, which is very heavy.

Outside the tent the enemies are already in the camp. By torchlight I see men in white armor and golden cloaks riding through the tents, hacking people's heads off with swords. Father and his generals are at the center of the camp, safe, but he puts me at the very front. _To give me a taste of blood_ , he says. _This is how I learned when I was young._

One of the enemy horsemen comes charging at me. I dodge his blow just in time, fumbling to get out my own sword. There are horsemen all around me now, both Senju and Uchiha. Other soldiers. Everyone is moving, dark grunting screaming shapes. I can't see Naruto.

"Little boy!" one of the Senju horsemen shouts, waving his sword in my direction. I can't tell if it's the same one as before or not. He charges. Before I have a chance to get in battle stance someone shoots an arrow in the man's throat, his horse shrieks, and he slides off the horse into the dirt in front of me.

I run for the trees. There's a thick grove of redwoods nearby, and men are fighting there too. One of them attacks me with a spear. I'm not prepared and the spear hits me in the chest. It doesn't pierce my samurai armor but it knocks me down. I groan. The man spears me again, in my armpit. Not deep, but I feel the pain and I scream. The man laughs. I remember that I don't want to die, so I bring my arm up, ignoring the pain, and slice at the man's thigh with the edge of my sword. He falls down, groaning like me.

I get up. Fear is rushing through every part of my body, making me hot all over. It's hard to breathe. Hard to think. The man with the spear is still moving, but behind me there's another enemy. I feel the wind of the sword as it comes for my neck and I block it. This enemy is a samurai, trained in the dance of the blades, as Father calls it. I know how he attacks, how he moves. It is like the sparring sessions in Uchiha Castle, only this time I know if I make a mistake I will die.

He's much bigger than I am, almost as big as Hagoromo. But I am fast, and strong. And my armor is much better than his. His sword hits the side of my body and is stopped by black steel. My sword hits the front of his helmet and keeps going. Blood comes out from his face and sprays all over me. Then he sags to the ground, with a sigh, like a fainting woman. The samurai is dead.

I killed him. I fall to my hands and knees and I throw up. Blood makes me sick. I want to get out of my armor and clean myself but the blood is everywhere. There are bodies all over, scattered among the trees. Someone else has killed the man with the spear. He smells awful, like he went to the privy in his own pants. I smell awful.

I feel awful.

After a while, I don't know how long, the battle dies down. _We've won_ , the soldiers tell me. _The Senju dogs are running with their tails cut off_. The news doesn't make me feel any better. It's morning and I ask where my slaveboy Naruto is.

They look all over, but they can't find him. Not dead, he's just not in the camp anymore.

Naruto is gone.

-X-

I tell Father that I saw Naruto get captured. That's a lie, but he believes it.

"You're well rid of the slaveboy, Itachi. Bad luck, he is. Now that the Senju have the little shit, perhaps they will suffer my luck as well."

I know Naruto ran away. I think he ran away to find Hagoromo. Hagoromo doesn't like slavery and I'm sure he will free Naruto, like I wanted to.

I'm glad for him. But I'm also sad, because I might never see my best friend again.

Father is wrong about Naruto.

He's wrong about bad luck, too. Our luck does not turn at all.

A few days later, near Kiushu, the Senju armies attack us again. It's an ambush and we're surrounded on every sides. I don't understand the battlefield strategy but I can smell the panic rising from all the Uchiha soldiers. They make me scared.

Father has put me on the frontlines again. He knows I killed a samurai in single combat but is not impressed. I don't think he will be impressed until I kill Senju Sarutobi himself. But at least this time father has given me some bodyguards. It's a good thing, because the first Senju attack hits our line like a golden tidal wave, and if my bodyguards are not there to shield me I know that I would be dead.

This time the men in white and gold do not run. We run.

My bodyguards bring me to the command tent where Father gives his orders. Father's generals are pleading with him. They want him to retreat. They say the battle is lost. Father refuses, and he sticks his sword in one general's belly. Father wants me to go back to fight on the frontlines, too. But by then the frontline is already at the command tent. Then Father has to retreat because if he doesn't then he'll be dead or captured.

The battle's a disaster. Half of our army is gone. The rest of us try to retreat east, back to the Blood Country, but the Senju chase us through the forests. There are constant attacks every day. I fight in many battles, too many to count on all my fingers and toes. My armor becomes dented and broken. My body does not do much better.

But I am still alive.

One day, me and my remaining bodyguards are fighting the enemy in a swamp. The enemy samurai are strong and there's a lot of them. One by one all my bodyguards fall. I know there's no escape.

The lead samurai knocks me to the ground and prepares to stick me through the face with his sword. His helmet is in the shape of a golden monkey. I see the blue sky behind him.

Suddenly the golden monkey is flying through the air, spraying blood.

I look up in shock. I see a pale face, hard jade eyes, a square jaw and long sharp nose. For an instant I think it's my father.

But my father doesn't have a slaveseal.

It's Naruto, a sword in his hand, blood all over his face and clothes. He's cut off the samurai's head.

"Naruto!"

"Master Itachi. Please get up and help me."

The other Senju samurai are attacking. Together me and Naruto beat them back, swords whirling. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?" I ask.

"In secret. I've seen you practice the movements often enough."

"Why?"

"That seems self-evident."

Naruto is very good. As strong as I am, stronger probably. I think he must have a lot of natural talent. It's not long before all the enemy samurai are either fleeing or dead.

Only then do I have the time to turn and look at him. Now I notice that the blood which covers Naruto's robe is dry, the same color as his hair. Old blood. I also notice that Naruto's robe is full of strange, small holes. He looks like he's had a rough time.

"What've you been doing?" I ask. "Didn't you go to Hagoromo?"

"No."

"Didn't you want to be free?"

He doesn't answer.

Finally I say, "I'm sorry."

"Don't feel sorry for me!" Naruto snaps. "I don't need your pity."

I shrink back from his outburst. I have so much to say, but I don't know what words I should use to say them. Sakura can talk a fish out of water, but my tongue is as charming as a wet noodle. I thank Naruto for saving me and he grunts.

We find my father on a hill overlooking the swamps.

The battle is over, and we've lost again. The Senju don't even bother to chase us away. They sit in their camp and let the ravens come down to feed on the corpses of the Blood Country dead. Thousands of corpses litter the hillsides down to the swamp and each corpse seems to have a raven pecking at it.

Father is kneeling alone at the top of the hill, his face in his hands. I've never seen him like that before.

"Father?"

He lowers his hands and looks at me. He's furious. "How can this be?" he demands. At first I think he's talking about Naruto, but he doesn't even notice him. Father looks past me to the horizon. "How can I be defeated by these Senju bastards? What have I done wrong? Tell me, Father!"

He is shouting now. He waves his sword Kusanagi at the sky. "Am I not strong? Have I not followed your lessons? Damn you! I am the great Warlord Uchiha Madara! The great Warlord! The Prince of the Ravens! My son shall be Emperor of all the world, I swear it!"

Father swings the Kusanagi into the ground in front of him with both hands. The blade digs deeply into the earth. He swings so hard that sparks fly, he strikes the dirt again and again. He strikes the sword until it breaks. The Kusanagi shatters and falls to the ground in two pieces.

We all stare at him. Father's anger is spent. He sits down on the hill, holding the pieces of his broken sword.

Just then a rider comes bearing letters. There are two of them. The first is from Senju Hagoromo. Hagoromo says that his offer to the Uchiha clan still stands. It was necessary for the Senju to defend their country from Blood, but he promises that that the Senju will not invade Blood in turn. Please let there be peace, he says.

The second letter is from home. It's from my mother.

She is pregnant again.

-X-

It's the new year when I come back to Sawara. Nine months have passed, but it feels like much more.

I'm fourteen. I'm not the same boy I was that left to go to war.

I've killed many men. And I've seen the strongest man I know, my father, become weak.

One day I go to the throne room in Uchiha Castle. It's empty. The doctors say that my new brother or sister will be born before sunset, and everyone is gathered in the birthing room to wait. But I'm restless. It'll be autumn soon, and the wild geese are already starting to fly away, to warmer places further south. I can hear them honk through the thin slit windows next to the throne. I look out the window, and I see falling leaves and yellow chrysanthemum flowers. Rain falls on the stone castle towers.

The throne is a huge iron chair, set on a stone dais in the middle of the room. It has belonged to the Uchiha family for hundreds of years, ever since we became the Shoguns of the Birthright Empire. The Shogun Throne, it's called. It's made from the iron armor of all the enemies that we have conquered.

Since I've been born no one but my father has sat on the Shogun Throne.

I know that Father wants more. Father wants to sit on the golden throne of the Birthright Emperors, up in the imperial palace on the hill of the High District. He's taken me to Birthright Keep lots of times, to look at the imperial throne. It's very beautiful and very old.

But no one can declare themselves Emperor without destroying all their enemies first. The Blood Country is still not big enough. Not strong enough.

Maybe it never will be.

Behind the iron Shogun Throne, closed off by cherry wooden doors, there is a set of stairs, winding down deep below the castle. I take the stairs down to the private shrine room of the Uchiha clan.

The tapestry is still there.

The names on the cloth aren't squiggles, now. I can read them. I know them, the names of my ancestors, the Uchiha family tree threaded in gold against a vast white canvas. I touch my own name, there at the very end. It smells like mold. Next to me there's a blank space. Haku should have been there, but he died before his time. Now the blankness will be filled by the name of somebody else.

"Itachi?"

I turn to see who it is. The voice is soft and a little bit squeaky, like a mouse.

It's Rin.

"Rin? What are you doing here?"

"Sakura sent me to tell you that the birth's started." She smiles. "I thought I'd find you here."

"I guess you know me pretty good." Rin has always been Sakura's friend, to tell the truth. But Rin's father, Misain Arashi, and my father are close allies. Rin has been hanging around Uchiha Castle since I can remember. I remember playing all sorts of pranks on her, like putting ants in her food and stealing the peacock feathers she likes so much. It was funny to hear her shout at me, shrill and squeaky.

Rin is different now. She's a woman. Even in the dim light of the shrine room, I can see the swelling beneath her chest. I can see the net of shiny rainbow jewels in her brown hair. She looks like a pretty doe, with those soft round brown eyes.

"I know you come here when you want to think," Rin says.

"Yeah. I'm thinking of the baby."

"Lady Kyoki says it'll be a boy."

"Another son." I can't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Maybe my father can be proud of this one. Maybe the baby can be the Uchiha heir."

"Don't underestimate yourself," Rin says softly. She moves closer to me. "Itachi. _You_ are the heir. You will be Warlord."

"A Warlord has to be smart. Has to be strong."

"You _are_ smart, and strong. Itachi, don't you see? Maybe you're not like your father, but what of it?" She gestured to the Uchiha tapestry. "None of them were. Uchiha Sasori was not a great general, but he was a deft diplomat. Uchiha Shion was a great builder, the architect of modern Sawara. Uchiha Hagoromo traded silk across the world, and to this day the Sohkaido Road he founded still exists."

I begin to understand what Rin is saying. "You mean… that I don't have to be such a great warrior?" I frown. "Because I'm better at other things?"

"You're kind, Itachi. You make people laugh. You make them love you. You make them follow where you lead."

"Father says that stuff doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

I'm silent for a long time. Then suddenly I am laughing. "Okay, I just decided!" I feel like I want to jump up and down. "I'm going to be Warlord in my own way! And… and Emperor in my own way, too!"

Rin hugs me fiercely. I feel her warmth.

"Maybe that's the only way to be emperor," she whispers.

-X-

Mother gives birth to a boy. His name is Sasuke, after my grandfather.

I stare as Sakura carries him in a little bundle out of the birthing room. My baby brother is fat and healthy and beautiful. She lets me hold him.

When I do, Sasuke smiles. I bring down a finger to stroke his cheek, and his skin is so soft and tender. I can't believe that this tiny baby is a living thing.

A deep love wells up inside me. It fills up my entire body until I'm going to burst. I don't know where this feeling comes from, but I don't want it to ever go away.

I'm so happy.

_I'll be Emperor in my own way_ , I promise myself then. _I'll be kind, and good, and I'll make justice._ Sasuke laughs, gurgles gently in my arms.

_For you, little brother. I'll be Emperor for you._


	12. The Slave's Tale: Sins of Blood, Part Three

Three years pass after Sasuke's birth. I'm seventeen and my father is over forty, most of his life already passed away. He's not the man he used to be.

He has not gone to war since that day he broke his sword in the swamp.

Father spends most of his days by himself, in his bedchambers, high up on one of the castle towers. Sometimes I see him pacing by the ramparts. He doesn't beat me anymore, and Naruto doesn't go up to his room.

He still won't agree to the wedding between Sakura and Hagoromo. I'm not worried. I know it's just a matter of time before I'm Warlord, and not him. And then I can do what I want.

Naruto is worried. "Master Madara is jeopardizing the ceasefire," he says to me. Naruto is very impatient ever since he ran away in the Wood Country and came back. It's like he can't wait. Naruto wants me to force Father to abdicate.

I say no. He's my father, and I won't do that to him.

Actually, it's not just Father that causes problems. Senju Sarutobi has problems with the wedding, too. Hagoromo and Sakura go and back forth between Sawara and Kiushu to try to negotiate an agreement. It's a tough slog.

Sometimes I join them, or I send Naruto as my liaison, but mostly I stay in Uchiha Castle. I know that Sakura is a better negotiator than I am, and I trust her. That was one of Father's mistakes. He never trusted anyone. He did everything by himself and he failed. I know that my place is here, in the castle, so I can take over as Warlord when the time comes. Naruto is my closest advisor, and I trust him too.

He just has to be patient.

-X-

I'm playing with Sasuke along the shore when Naruto comes to tell me that Father has agreed to the wedding.

"Yeah! The wedding!" Sasuke shouts, jumping up and down in the surf.

Sasuke has been hearing about the marriage between the Senju and Uchiha clans all his life. He knows it's important. He even understands why. He's only three, but he's so much smarter than I was at his age. So much quicker and more aware. I'm very proud.

I love him.

Of course, Sasuke is very easy to love. He's like a cat, running around and scampering everywhere, rascally and curious. He asks questions about everything. At night, Sasuke's jade eyes seem to glitter in the darkness. Even in winter his smile is bright as the summer sun. Sasuke likes to play outdoors, and I like to play with him. I teach him to fly kites on the beach, to skip stones on the waves, to listen to the music of seashells. I teach him to swim.

He teaches me, too. Sasuke teaches me to be happy.

I love to watch Sasuke as he runs along the shore, barefoot, not a care in the world. He'll stretch out his little arms to either side, as if to catch the wind. The wind'll blow in his face, making his silver hair ripple in the sunlight. When the sun gets low in the sky, it'll cast a long shadow of Sasuke across the surface of the sunset water, ten times as long as his real body. And then I'll think that my baby brother is a giant among men. Later, when Sasuke finally gets tired, I'll pick him up and he'll bury his face in my chest. He smells like the sea and I breathe deeply of it. _You're the best big brother ever_ , he'll whisper as I carry him home. _I love you, Itachi._

Sasuke is jumping into my arms now. "The wedding! The wedding! Sakura's getting married!"

"I know," I say, tickling him. I turn to Naruto. "How?"

Naruto stands back by the rocks, away from us. His shaggy red hair hangs down below the neck. For the first time I notice he's growing it out. "Quite simple, really. Hagoromo-sama threatened his father with exile from the Senju clan and Senju Sarutobi crumbled. Once Sarutobi agreed to the marriage, the only remaining obstacle was Master Madara. It was easy to bring the full weight of all parties against him. Sakura told him that if he didn't abdicate in favor of you, he would be overthrown. It was a very convincing speech."

I'm not sure I like that. "Was this your idea?"

"Who else? It's just like I said, Master Itachi. We have to make our own fates. And now you're Warlord." Naruto smiles.

Sasuke smiles too.

-X-

I can't complain about Naruto's plot. It's sneaky, I don't like it, but what's done is done.

The wedding is arranged. A date's set for just after the New Year's celebrations and everyone gets busy preparing, especially Naruto. I put Naruto in charge of the planning. It'll be the most important wedding since the marriage of Uchiha Kurenai to the Birthright Emperor himself, and it has to be done right. It's not only the union of two enemy clans. It's also the transfer of power between generations. During the wedding Senju Sarutobi will abdicate to Hagoromo, and Father will abdicate to me.

The ceremony will be held in the throne room of Uchiha Castle.

One day Mother summons me to her garden courtyard. Sakura is there, too. Mother says, "Itachi, you shall be Warlord in a few months. Being the Warlord is very different from being heir."

"Paperwork," Sakura adds. "Meetings, petitions, arbitrations. Decisions to be made all the time. We think you should start now, to prepare yourself."

"Okay," I say.

"You won't have time for other things," says Mother. "Such as running on the beach with Sasuke."

That surprises me. "But I love Sasuke."

"I know you do. My goodness, you've played with the boy as much I have, his own mother." She shakes her gray head, smiling. "Itachi, if you want to be Warlord…"

"Okay," I say again. I remember my promise, to be a good Emperor for Sasuke. If I have to do paperwork, I'll do it.

I'm not worried.

Sakura fingers back her flowing silver hair. "There's another matter, little brother."

"What?"

"You're old enough to marry. Have you anybody in mind?"

That surprises me, too. I think these women are full of surprises today. "No. Um, I haven't thought about it. "

Mother and Sakura look at each other. "But you must know you have suitors," Mother says.

"I do?"

"Yes."

I stare at them.

There's a short silence. Then Sakura says, "Misain Rin."

" _Rin_?" I cry out. "She wants to marry _me_?"

Mother sighs. "Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger."

"We do not want a tiger, anyway," Sakura says back. "Tigers are dangerous, toads are far more loveable and pleasant."

Then Sakura smiles and pokes me in the forehead, like she used to when I was little. I don't quite understand what Mother and Sakura are talking about, but I think they are calling me an idiot.

I feel like an idiot. I've known Rin all my life.

"Are you interested in Rin or not?" Mother asks.

"I… no, I don't think so. I mean, I don't have time. I'll be Warlord soon, like you said." My words are all confused, so I just blurt it out. "I don't want to get married now."

"Very well."

I think Sakura must have told Rin my answer, because the next time I see Rin she avoids me. I feel bad, but I'm too busy to say sorry. Being Warlord really is a lot of work. And I guess I'm avoiding her, too.

She comes to find me during the New Year's celebrations. It's the end of the winter but still very cold. At night we gather on the castle ramparts to watch the fireworks above Sawara. Bright bursts of light reflect off the snow that covers the ground. Soon the fireworks are over, and the rest of our guests go back inside. I stay outside, looking at the darkness. There's a sudden silence, and I hear a heron bird cry out. It sounds lonely. Nothing else stirs on this empty frozen night, the first of the year.

"Itachi," Rin says softly behind me.

"Rin." I'm trying not to stare at her, but it's hard. She's close and her frosted breath touches my own.

"Happy New Year, Itachi."

"Yeah. Um, you too."

"Why won't you look at me?"

"What?" I laugh, scratching my head. "No, uh…"

"Am I ugly? Does my face displease you?"

"No!" I finally turn around. "Rin, please! It's not that."

"Then what is it? It must be something." The words come out of her in a rush. "You denied my father's marriage request, without any reason. I thought… I thought we'd be a perfect match."

"Rin. I only… I mean, marriage is a big step."

"I love you, Itachi."

I stare at her. Her face is dark in the firelight of the castle windows, but I can see her eyes, soft and curved and filled with tears. She stares back.

"Itachi. Do you love me?"

"I…" My mouth is dry. "You're my good friend, Rin."

Tears fall down her cheeks.

I don't want Rin to cry. I want to wipe the tears off her face, but she turns away before I can stretch out my hand. Then, so quick, she's already gone.

-X-

When the wedding comes at last it's still snowing.

By the calendar it's spring, but I can't see it. I stand by the gates of Sawara, waiting for the Senju clan to arrive, and I can see nothing but snow. The ground is covered smooth in it. I can't tell apart anything in this whiteness, not even the Sohkaido Road, not field or river or hill or house. There are winter chrysanthemums out there, somewhere, but they look just like the frost.

Most of the wedding guests come to Sawara by sea. The Senju clan comes by the Sohkaido Road. In the distance they appear all at once, like a torch of golden flame. They light up the snow. It is a great procession, thousands of lords and soldiers and slaves. It reminds me of my father's processions, when he would leave Sawara to go to war, or when he would come back.

The Senju are not here for war. They've traveled all the way from the Wood Country, to make peace. And to wed my sister.

Hagoromo rides at the head of his clan. I greet him. Then I greet his father, Senju Sarutobi, and his aunts and uncles, including the general Senju Onome. We all greet each other. There are a dozen Senju in the procession, and just as many Uchiha waiting for them in turn. Father, Mother, Sakura, and Sasuke, of course. But also my uncle Uchiha Shion, and his sons. Old Uchiha Sasori, and his children. Our entire clans are both here.

"You have grown much since first we met," Hagoromo says to me. "I am greatly pleased, Itachi."

Sasuke giggles, pulling on Hagoromo's robe. "I've grown too! Haven't I?"

"Indeed. Soon enough I shall teach you the secrets of spirit energy. Would you like that, dear Sasuke?"

"Yeah!"

Then Sakura takes Hagoromo's hand.

"My love," she whispers.

Hagoromo nods. His braided yellow hair whips in the cold morning wind, but his yellow eyes are as still and hot as the sun. "Yes. It is time."

The wedding is very beautiful. Sakura and Hagoromo stand together on the dais of the throne room, just below the Shogun Throne. Mother's brought the Uchiha clan tapestry up from the shrine to hang above it. Thirty generations of Uchiha look down over us, our hundreds of wedding guests. They are all the greatest bloodnames in both countries.

Only Rin is not there. Rin is very sick, Sakura says. Her father is not there, either, because he has to take care of her. I'm sad but there's no time to think about it. The ceremony is starting and the Zen monks are chanting and Sakura is bowing down low to her future husband. Sakura is dressed in formal robes of the best silk, red and black, and her silver hair is knotted with little rubies carved in the shape of flowers. She smiles, and it takes my breath away.

Sakura recites a poem:

_Gentle foothills, and_  
_in the dew drops of the mountains,_  
_soaked, I waited for you—_  
_grew wet from standing there_  
_in the dew drops of the mountains._

Hagoromo bows to her in turn. I remember the first time I saw him, on the lakes of Caiaden. He wore a shirt of simple brown cloth, but even then I knew he was no ordinary man. Now Hagoromo wears golden robes and a crown of shining white dreamsteel. He looks every inch a king.

He recites a poem back to his bride:

_Waiting for me,_  
_you grew wet there_  
_in gentle foothills,_  
_in the dew drops of the mountains—_  
_I wish I'd been such drops of dew._

Then they drink the ceremonial wine, and are husband and wife.

As a wedding gift, Senju Sarutobi presents the ancestral clan sigil to Hagoromo. It means that now Hagoromo is Warlord of the Wood Country.

Father gives Sakura a castle, near the border of Wood. Then he abdicates the throne to me. I go up to the dais to accept his sword Kusanagi. It has been reforged. Father is sitting on the Shogun Throne, cold twisted iron armor all around him. "Thank you," I say.

"This chair was always meant for you, Itachi." My father's voice is weary as he glances at the tapestry behind him. His eyes are hard, but his silver hair has gone white. "It was not the same for me. I had six brothers, all older than I was. Four died in battle, and two more of disease. I was the only son left. The only one to carry on the bloodname of the Uchiha." Father laughs, angry. "But you are my son."

"I'll be a good Warlord, Father."

"Is that so? You're going to free him, aren't you? The slaveboy." He hasn't spoken to me of Naruto in years.

"Yes."

"Then you're a fool. A greater fool than even I was."

His words upset me. I take my father's sword, bow to him as I should, and walk from the dais. Father keeps sitting on the Shogun Throne, and I let him stay there.

It'll be mine tomorrow.

The wedding banquet cheers me up a lot. It's an amazing feast. We're all together in the throne room and eat from so many delicious dishes that I think that my stomach's going to burst. There's wine, too, and music. Naruto has hired minstrels to sing ballads of Hagoromo's favorite poetry. No one pays any attention at all to the snow falling outside. It's dark when Lord Namikaze Minato presents a gift to the newlyweds, a striking woodcut of Uchiha Castle by the young artist Anayama Tokusai.

"Oh!" Sasuke says. He's sitting on my lap. "I have a gift, too. I forgot to bring it." He tugs my arm. "It's heavy, can you help me, Itachi?"

"Sure."

"Can I ride on your back?"

I laugh and hoist Sasuke up. It must look childish, my little brother hanging from my neck, but I don't care. Besides, I'm the Warlord now, and I can do what I want.

I carry Sasuke on my back, up the winding passages of the castle to his bedchamber. Sasuke likes to look at the sea, watch the waves break against the rocks, and the room in the highest tower is the best place to do it.

"Itachi?" Sasuke asks as we climb.

"Yeah?"

"What's that song?"

I hadn't noticed before, but now I hear a faint snatch of music from below. It's coming from the minstrels in the throne room. " _And now it goes as it goes…_ "

"I don't know," I say. "Some poem."

"It's pretty." Sasuke is silent a while. "Itachi?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you don't play with me anymore?"

"I do, Sasuke."

"Not like you used to."

"I'm busier now. I have to be Warlord."

"Why do ya have to be Warlord all the time?"

I start to speak but the music from below drowns out my answer. It's getting louder and louder. " _…_ _And now it goes as it goes! And where it ends is Fate!_ "

I try the answer again. "So I can protect you, Sasuke. Because I'm your big brother and I'll always keep you safe."

Sasuke tightens his grip around my body. "No matter what?"

"No matter what." I lift a hand up to tickle my brother's side, and he squeals in laughter, as I know he will. "Look, we're here."

I slide open the door to Sasuke's bedchamber. I expect warmth but a blast of cold hits me instead. The windows are not shut. Snow billows from outside into the room, blowing out the fire in the hearth, scattering chips of ice all over. It's night and I can hardly see anything, but the minstrel music is clear as day. I hear it through the open windows.

The words are reaching a climax. _"And neither by bathing flesh…"_

"My gift!" Sasuke cries out, climbing off my back. He runs to something in pieces on the floor.

"… _nor tipping cups of wine…"_

I've heard this song before, but I don't remember where. Somebody recited it to me. Was it Hagoromo? Sasuke is tugging hard on my arm, pulling me. "Itachi, look! Look, my gift!" He's crying.

"… _nor shedding burning tears can you…_ "

Sasuke's gift is a seashell. It's broken in a hundred pieces all across the floor. "It was for Sakura!" my brother wails. "So she can hear home wherever she goes. Itachi, Itachi! Who did this?"

"… _CAN YOU WASH AWAY THE SINS OF BLOOD!_ "

The music stops.

I open my mouth to say something. Then I start to hear the screams.

-X-

The screaming makes me want to jump. It makes me want to cover my ears, but I can't. I'm the Warlord.

"Itachi!" Sasuke shouts. There's fear in his eyes. "What's going on?"

"Stay here!" I tell him.

Then I run for the throne room.

I run down dim empty passageways. Time slows, and it's like I'm moving in water, it's forever before I see the iron doors of the throne room at last. They're closed and flames are pouring from the sides. I pound on the doors. "Sakura!" I shout. "Mother! Father!" Where are the guards, the servants and slaves? I don't hear screaming anymore. I ram the doors with my body, again and again.

They burst open.

The throne room is on fire.

Black smoke is everywhere. I can't breathe. I stumble to the floor, and my hands brush something slick and hot. It's a river of blood. I look up, and then I see that everyone is dead.

Mother has a hole where her heart should be. Father is cut all to pieces, sliced up into little slabs of meat like a cow or a pig. Hundreds of bodies are draped around the room, lying on tables in pools of blood, burning in the flames. Senju Sarutobi. Senju Onome. Uncle Shion and Great Uncle Sasori. Namikaze Minato. Hayate Gatou. Hyuuga Hinabi. Nara Hanzou and Makoto Jiraiya. Even the minstrels, all the wedding guests. All the Senju. All the Uchiha.

I hear laughter.

It pierces the hiss of the flames like a lance. It's a cruel laugh, rough and jagged. A cold, hollow sound from the back of the throat.

There is a man sitting on the Shogun Throne. The flames light the man up like a torch, like a cloak of bloody red. The Uchiha clan tapestry behind the man is a burning halo.

It's me.

The man is me. I'm laughing.

 _No_ , I think. _No, that can't be_. But the man has my face. He has my eyes and my nose and my silver hair.

Then I see the slaveseal.

"Naruto?" I whisper.

"One moment, Itachi. I will deal with you shortly." The man gestures to the dais below.

It's Hagoromo, struggling to crawl up the dais steps. Hagoromo is reaching for Sakura's corpse which is sprawled at the foot of the Shogun Throne. The man kicks him and Hagoromo tumbles back down the steps.

The man laughs again. "You see, Hagoromo-sensei? I told you. There's no fate but what we make. You taught me too well."

Hagoromo gasps, turning on his side. Blood is running down his face, and then I see he has no eyes. They've been cut out. "Naruto… you… _you_..."

"Me," Naruto agrees. "I think I'll leave you alive, Hagoromo-sensei. A fate worse than death. Why, you can even be the one who gets the blame."

Hagoromo is crawling back up the steps. "Naruto… _please_ …"

"You can be the one who killed your own wife on the day of your own wedding. Hagoromo the Butcher, the world shall call you. Not just Hagoromo the Unfaithful, Hagoromo the Philanderer—no, you will be so much more interesting. That's justice, don't you think?" Naruto kicks him again. Hagoromo falls to the smoking floor and doesn't move.

I'm stunned.

I can't believe this, any of this. My heart is lodged in my throat and it's cold as ice. I feel numb all over.

"Gods," I whisper. "You… you killed them…"

"They had to die, if I was to take your place." Naruto's green eyes glitter with amusement. He taps his fingers on the iron of the Shogun Throne, _click click click_. "If I was to become Warlord."

"You're my best friend." I can't understand. "You saved my life!"

"No. I saved your death for myself."

" _Why_?"

"Why?" My slaveboy smiles. His eyes bore into me, sharp and bright as swords. "Because I hate you. Because I hate the Uchiha. And most of all… because I could. Because I am free."

There's a scream behind me. So small, so young.

It's Sasuke, standing in the doorway. He followed me down.

"No!" I shout. "Sasuke, get out of here!"

All at once I realize that Naruto is going to kill him, too. The realization breaks my paralysis. I pick Sasuke up and run from the throne room. I have to protect Sasuke. I know I can't fight Naruto, he's just killed the greatest samurai in the world, so I have to escape. The whole castle is on fire. Flames surge up cracking wooden timbers, they slither across collapsing stone walls. The fire is coming from everywhere, the smoke. It must all be part of Naruto's betrayal. Somehow I know that everyone in the castle is already dead, except for me and Sasuke.

"Itachi!" Sasuke cries. He's holding me so tight the nails of his little hands cut into my skin. "Itachi! I saw—I saw Mother—"

"Don't think about it! Sasuke, we've got to get out of here!"

There's an exit in front of me. It's on fire but I don't care. I jump through it and stumble outside into the snow. My hands and neck are burned and Sasuke is screaming.

"Help! Help!" I shout. "Anybody! I am the Warlord Uchiha Itachi! Help!" Nobody answers. There's only snow, falling in thick white flurries from the night sky. I look back, and Uchiha Castle is melting, the stone towers are collapsing in a swarm of burning cinders. Tears of red-hot stone run down the castle walls. It looks like blood.

I try to run again, run for Sawara city. A punch hits me in the gut.

I topple to the ground. Sasuke tumbles into the snow, wailing. I can't breathe, the wind's knocked out of me. "Sasuke!" I gasp.

My slaveboy is a black-and-silver shadow against the flames of Uchiha Castle. A torch is in in his right hand and a branding iron is in his left. "It's over, brother. Your name is mine. Now I am Uchiha Itachi."

I don't understand his words. "You're Naruto."

He roars at me. "Idiot! You stupid, stupid, stupid!" He pulls me up by the neck and makes me look right at him. "Look, _brother_! Look at my face!"

Why hadn't I noticed it before? I grew up with him all my life. But he was a slaveboy, with a slaveseal on his forehead and bright red curls. And I was the heir to the Blood Country, with the straight silver hair of the Uchiha. We weren't alike at all.

But now Naruto has dyed his hair silver. He's straightened it out. And now Naruto looks like me. Not exactly, there are differences, but very close.

It's like staring into a mirror.

"How?" I whisper.

"You idiot. Everyone else knew, but you never did. Dead last as always." Naruto sneers. "My mother was Uchiha Madara's slavegirl. We were born on the same day. Don't you get it?"

And then at last I do.

"Gods," I say. "My father…"

" _Our father_. Gods, it felt so good to kill him." Naruto throws me to the ground and waves around his torch. "Your bloodname is mine by right."

"No." I see the flaw in his plan. "Your slaveseal. You can't be me!"

"On the contrary. I was the only survivor of the great tragedy that consumed the rest of my clan. I managed to escape the fire, but not without burns…"

Then my half-brother plunges the torch straight into his forehead.

"Naruto!" I shout. I can't help it, I feel sick just watching.

Naruto throws the torch into the snow. His entire upper face is a burned black scar. For a long terrible moment he just stands there like a frozen statue. Then suddenly Naruto raises his head to the sky and screams. He screams with pain and anger and joy. He screams and screams.

"Naruto…"

"I am Itachi now!"

He attacks me, so fast and strong. I feel my ribs break and my head spin. Blood comes spurting from my mouth. "I am Uchiha Itachi now!" Naruto shouts again as he kicks me. "That is my name!"

"Itachi!" another voice is screaming. Sasuke runs to me and grasps my hand, trying to pull me up. His hand is so tiny and soft.

"Sasuke," I whisper. I have no strength left.

Then Sasuke is attacking Naruto, trying to punch and bite his legs. Naruto picks him up easily by the throat.

"No!" I gasp. My chest feels as cold as the snow that soaks my skin. "Please… spare Sasuke's life. Please. He's only three years old."

Naruto smiles. "Oh, I have a worse fate in mind for him. Far worse."

The branding iron is still in Naruto's hand. It glows red as I watch, hotter and hotter. Sasuke is struggling, little legs kicking furiously in the air. "No!" I cry out. Then Naruto stabs the brand right above Sasuke's eyes.

Sasuke shrieks.

I try to get up. My arms and legs don't work right. I feel so cold, so faint. Something bangs into me, knocking me back into the snow. It's Sasuke. He's holding his hands to his head and crying. _I said that I would keep you safe_ , I think. _I promised._

Naruto's voice rings out in the burning night. He sounds just like my father. "Sasuke," he says. "Do you hate me?"

I hear my little brother speak. " _Yes_."

"Then run, Sasuke. My little avenger. Run, and cling to life, until we meet again." He laughs. "Run fast, because the slavers will be after you."

Naruto is above me now. He has a sword in his hand, somehow, a sword white as snow. He raises it high over my chest. "Any last words, Itachi?"

"Sasuke…" I gasp.

"How predictably boring." Naruto shakes his head. Then he lowers his hand, and I feel something hard and sharp enter my heart. My body goes numb all over. Everything is so freezing cold.

"Sasuke," I whisper. "Sasuke… _I'm sorry_ …"

There's only darkness.


	13. The Avenger

When Sasuke finished his story, the night had come again, and stars crowded into the sky like glittering white pearls. In the center of them all was the moon. It lay in a blaze, wreathed by twisted, coiling black clouds. _Like the eye of a blind man_ , Naruto thought. Then he lowered his gaze back to earth.

The other boy was staring at him. Waiting.

"A remarkable tale," Naruto allowed.

"You must believe me, Naruto. Everything you know about the Night of Blood is a lie. Everything you know about your master is a lie. And this is the truth."

"So you claim. Have you proof?"

"Proof? I remember! And so does _he_!"

"Perhaps we ought to ask him, then."

Sasuke turned away, lips pressed tight. For a while he was silent. At last he said, "Do ya believe me, or don't ya?"

Naruto was not sure. It was a horrible, ghastly story. " _Everything you know about your master is a lie…_ "Yet the facts seemed to fit. The Warlord's scar, right where a slaveseal would be. The times he had seen the Warlord with a basin of silver-stained water. Would Master Itachi keep such a secret from him? The slaveboy did not think so, but then he did not think his master would hide magic powers, either. And the Warlord had known Sasuke somehow. " _Why, my dear little demon, you look just like me_." Yet what of the others? The Warlord's friends, counselors, enemies. How could they fail to notice the deception? The closest had all been killed, perhaps. As for the rest… if the two brothers were really look-alikes, almost twins… the facial burns might be enough to conceal any differences of appearance, the Night of Blood enough to explain any inconsistencies in behavior. Naruto remembered Misain Arashi's words. " _Itachi-sama was reborn that night…_ "

Naruto did not say all that to Sasuke, though. Instead he asked, "And if I do not believe you? What shall you do then?"

"Justice." Sasuke's jade eyes glinted beneath the moon. "I'll do justice, and no one is gonna stop me. Not you. Not anyone."

"So you'll kill me."

"Naruto… Naruto, please. I love you."

"Oh, do you? So you claim. I cannot judge the truth of it." Naruto's tone was more bitter than he intended. "One moment you are a giggling fool, the next a ruthless assassin. Even the way you talk is different. Which is it? The Innocent or the Avenger? Who are you really, Sasuke?"

Sasuke hesitated. "I… I don't know. It's complicated."

"Of that I have no doubt."

"Please, try to understand! I was barely three when the Warlord sold me into slavery. The slavemasters forced me to work in a gold mine. Runnin' messages at first, hauling stones when I was a little older. It was hell, Naruto. We lived and worked in constant darkness, with hardly any sleep, and even less food. Only half the slaves who went down there ever came out again. Almost none of the kids. But I kept my name. And I remembered. That's what kept me going. I fed on hate and I feasted on dreams of revenge. Finally, when I was eight, I killed the overseer and escaped the mines.

"I knew I had to find Otsutsuki Hagoromo. He was the only one who knew the truth, 'sides me. I crossed the sea to ask him for help. But Hagoromo-sama refused me. He was a monk, he said, and had forsworn hatred. Hate had turned him crazy before, but that was over now. Now God's kindness had given him peace. I couldn't understand. How could he forget what the Warlord had done? So Hagoromo-sama showed me. He taught me about Kiyome, and kindness, and justice. He gave me a place in the monastery. I learned how ta' plant a garden, and read the poems of Kishimo Jiraiya, and care for the sick. And I started to dream of new things. Not revenge, but freedom. Beauty. Happiness. Love."

Naruto laughed. "How idyllic. Yet I'm curious on one point. How does a gardener become a slave whore?"

"Because it wasn't enough. I tried ta' forget, but I couldn't. I wanted to be free, to be innocent… but then I'd remember that night. I'd remember my half-brother's burning face. So I went to Hagoromo-sama. I pleaded, I begged. Eventually he agreed to train me as a ninja. By that time Hagoromo-sama had awakened the Rinnegan—"

"The Rinnegan?" Naruto interrupted.

"His bloodline. You must've heard the rumors. Eyes with the power to control the five elements, to heal the sick, to summon demons. They're all true."

"I see. So the man is no prophet, after all. Only an inhuman monstrosity."

Sasuke frowned. "Hagoromo-sama is a prophet. Not because of his bloodline. Because of his ideals."

"Ah, yes. Kiyome, the religion of peace. An odd name. All you people have brought is war and death."

"Naruto, stop." Sasuke ran his hands through his silver hair. "Let me finish, okay? By that time Hagoromo-sama was callin' himself the Sage of Six Paths. As the Sage, he studied the use of spiritual energy—what _you_ people call 'magic'—and trained his disciples to use it too. With both the Rinnegan and chakra jutsu, no one could stand against us. Not even the Juubi, the ten-tailed beast that had rampaged over so many countries. Hagoromo-sama defeated the Juubi, and in gratitude the rival empires of Genoa and Ilithia both converted to Kiyome. In two years we conquered the entire south. Then we started ta' prepare for the invasion the north. Hagoromo-sama sent me over here first, to make trouble. I took on the mask of the Kitsune, after the shapeshifting demon fox in southern legends. And I killed as many of the Warlord's minions as I could."

"Of course." It was all clear to Naruto now. "And you became a slave whore so you could get access. You fucked them in the morning, and slit their throats at night. Who would suspect the sweet little whore of doing the bloody deed?"

"I did what I had to do."

"As do we all. Tell me, Sasuke. Who's a better fuck, me or Nara Kakashi? How about me or the Sage of Six Paths? He diddled you too, or am I wrong?"

"Stop, Naruto. Stop!" Sasuke's eyes were wet with tears. "Why do you have to be like this? I told you everything… _I love you_! You asshole!"

With amazing speed the whore ran away and disappeared into the ruins of Uchiha Castle.

Naruto was alone.

For a long moment he just sat there in the grass, at a loss. _I should leave_ , he thought. _Or find my sword, and kill him_. Instead he shivered and wrapped his chest with his arms. In the night Uchiha Castle was a maze of dark, formless shadows. From somewhere Naruto heard a soft howling sound, and he was in such a state of mind that at first he imagined it was a ghost, a wedding guest raised from the grave and out for blood. But it was only the wind, rattling past crumbled stone.

_What am I doing?_ He did not know. Last night he had jumped off a cliff to behead the Demon Fox. But now all his resolution, all his surety had left him. Naruto sensed that he was at a crossroads. On one side was his master. On the other side was Sasuke. He wanted to go down both roads, he desperately wished for it, but in the end he could take only one. And which one was up to him. The sensation was unfamiliar. He had never had it in his whole life, he had never believed it possible. _A choice. A bloody choice, and the wrong one means death_.

Slowly, he got up, and went to find Sasuke.

The other boy was huddled beside a broken statue overlooking the sea, sniffling, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand. Naruto sat next to him. "I'm sorry," he said.

"You should be."

"Sasuke… I'm sorry. About everything." Naruto reached out a hand to touch the boy's shoulder. It was bruised, so he made sure not to press too hard. "I… I believe you."

"Ya believe I'm Uchiha Sasuke?"

Naruto nodded.

The other boy turned his head, and they saw face to face. Sasuke's hair was ghostly in the night wind, but his eyes were dark and hot. "Ya believe I love you?"

"Why?" Naruto whispered. "I don't understand."

_How could you love someone like me?_

"Naruto." Gently Sasuke brought a hand up to cup his cheek. "You dummy, don't ya get it? You think ya're just a slaveboy. But you're not. Ya're more than that, so much more… ya're _kind_. Ya're got a heart. The Warlord took your name. He took your freedom. But he never took that. Never." Sasuke ran his fingers slow through Naruto's locks of golden hair. "When I'm with ya… you make me forget. The pain. The hatred. Ya make me forget it all. And I need that. _You_ , I need _you_. Don't leave me. Please."

They kissed.

Sasuke's mouth was warm and soft as silk, his tongue as wicked as his grasping hands, darting all over. "Sasuke," Naruto gasped, panting for breath. The other boy giggled, undoing the belt of Naruto's kimono and sliding bony arms around his chest. Naruto hissed at the touch, feeling the bruises under his bandages. "That hurts. Not so hard."

"Sorry," Sasuke whispered. He did not sound sorry, though, and when he pressed Naruto to the ground his weight fell right where it hurt the most. Naruto pushed back, elbowing Sasuke in the side, fingers reaching up to squeeze his forearm. This time it was Sasuke's turn to grunt in pain.

"I cut you there, didn't I? " Naruto laughed, touching the bandage tenderly. "Did I leave a scar?"

"Ya'll have to stick me deeper than that."

"How unfortunate. I—uhhh"—Naruto groaned as Sasuke bit at his neck—"I seem to have misplaced my sword."

"Oh? So what's this?" Sasuke slipped a hand beneath Naruto's loincloth. His cock was stiff as steel, and as wet as a bloody blade. Sasuke stroked the slender shaft with his long fingers, rubbing the tip with his thumb.

"That," Naruto gasped, "That'll leave a scar of a different sort."

Sasuke only smiled, a flash of insolent white. Naruto felt a sharp nail dig into the slit of his penis, making him cry out. "Fuck you," he panted.

"I thought ya'd never ask."

With one hand the other boy undid the loincloth while he pulled off his own clothes with the other. In a moment they were both naked, Naruto's angry purple erection and Sasuke's taut, bony body. Sasuke climbed atop the prone Naruto, knees straddling Naruto's sides. "Sasuke!" he started to say, only to break off in a groan when the other boy slid onto his dick with a tight sucking sound.

"Naruto," Sasuke whispered, hot ass muscles clenching against Naruto's shaft. His hands pushed against Naruto's stomach, riding him hard and fast. "Scar me, Naruto!" Naruto moaned, his face flushed red, wide blue eyes fluttering with ecstasy. Sasuke was moving so fast he was bouncing, screaming Naruto's name every time he slammed down on him. "Naruto! I love you!"

Naruto arched his back desperately. "I love you, too!" His fingers dug into the grass, hips thrusting in concert with Sasuke's slams. "Sa—Sasuke, ngh…"

"Naruto… damnit… my dick…" Sasuke's penis quivered in the cool night air, a tiny red spear between his pale legs. Naruto brought up his hands to pleasure it. One hand grabbed Sasuke's ballsack while the other jerked up and down the shaft. The hard length throbbed in Naruto's fist, unbearably hot. "Naruto!" Sasuke moaned, bouncing furiously. "Naruto!"

"Sasuke!" It was too much. Naruto exploded, jets of hot cum shooting out into Sasuke's ass. Sasuke ejaculated at the same time. White sticky liquid splattered into Naruto's palm and dripped through the cracks in his fingers. Sasuke writhed in climax, sphincter contracting so tight Naruto was sure his dick would break. "Sasuke, ah! Ahh!"

All at once it was over. Sasuke rolled off him and to the side, making soft shuddering sounds. His arm fell against Naruto's chest. Their faces brushed together. Naruto panted, gently stroking the other boy's tangled silver hair. There were bandages around the head, stained with dry blood.

"I love you," Sasuke murmured.

There was a pause. And then again, "I need you."

_I know what you need_ , Naruto thought.

Abruptly Naruto got up, pushing Sasuke's arm off him. In front of him there was a broken statue of black marble, worn and cracked, missing the left side of its body. It seemed to be some sort of bird-like creature. He looked closer, and saw that it was a raven. The raven's head was tilted, and a glassy black eye looked out beyond the rocky shore to the Endless Sea. Moonlight leaked out from behind the clouds, scattering pale ripples on the smooth water. In the distance, at the mouth of Fire Fan Bay, tiny fishing boat lights twinkled on and off like stars.

He heard Sasuke come up behind him. "You've read Kishimo Jiraiya," Naruto said without turning. "Do you know the one about the castle?"

"It's my favorite poem." So saying, Sasuke recited it:

_Countries may fall,  
__But their rivers and mountains remain.  
__When spring comes to the ruined castle,  
__The grass is green again_.

"I thought it would be," Naruto said. It was spring now, and the grass of Uchiha Castle was green indeed. _But the people are all still dead._ Naruto felt a chill, an ocean wind that fluttered open his robe and prickled the naked skin of his thighs. "You want my help."

Sasuke's voice was very soft. "Yes."

"You want me to betray my master."

"He deserves it." Sasuke dangled his arms around Naruto's neck, pulling himself close. "Ya're as much his victim as me. Don't ya get it? The Warlord invaded your village. He murdered your parents. He made you a slave. He gave you his slave name! The name he burned off his own face to escape. That's what he thinks of ya, Naruto. He hates you."

_Master Itachi raised me_ , Naruto wanted to tell him. _He took care of me, he made me strong. He gave me the only name that I have._ But when he opened his mouth to speak no sound came out.

Sasuke had moved to the front, his naked body sliding against Naruto's own. "Help me, Naruto," he begged. The boy's skin was slick with sweat, his breath as warm and sweet as summer. When he clutched at Naruto, his limbs trembled with a desperate, needy strength. "I can't beat him alone. But we'll do it together. Please. Avenge your family. Avenge yourself, and be free." Strands of silver hair flapped in a breeze that stung of salt, that stank of coming storms. A pale glimmer danced across bright green eyes. "Will ya help me, Naruto?"

"Yes," whispered the slaveboy then. "Oh, yes."


	14. Outcast

Naruto made his way north toward the slave markets. Uchiha Castle was behind him, the desolate ruins at the southern tip of Sawara that people had named the Haunted City. It was said that no one could trespass into the Haunted City and leave without losing a piece of their soul. Naruto did not know if he'd ever had a soul. Yet he had left something behind in that place. Naruto was just not sure what.

People bustled all around him, merchants and traders and workers. He was approaching Market Street, the main thoroughfare of the Merchant District, and the distinctive scent of money was in the air. It was the aroma of the slaves. _The most valuable property in all the world, but hardly the most fragrant._ The stink of the unwashed, naked bodies piling in pens along the street made Naruto want to cut off his nose, and then bury it besides. Here and there people had scattered plum petals along the cobblestones, trying to absorb the smell, but in the noonday heat it was a futile effort.

Naruto could breathe a little better when he came to the river. Market Street ran right across the breadth of the Haven River, and the arching marble span of Sawara Bridge was stuffed to the brim not only with traffic, but with the sweet tangy taste of the wind. Peasant workers in loincloths were shouting, trying to get past each other. Some of them got into a fight and one dropped his shoulder pole, spilling a basket of fish off the bridge into the river below. His straw hat floated downstream as well; a woman in a passing pleasure boat plucked it up and placed it on her own head, giggling and waving at the cursing peasant with a red paper fan.

The Haven River was full of slave boats. The pole-barges drifted downriver from all across the north, carrying slaves to the Sawara market to be sold at auction. Naruto spied a group of black-skinned slaves on one pole-barge as it docked at the pier under the bridge. From the far north, the Earth Country perhaps. The men were unremarkable and thus nearly worthless, though some of the women and boys were pretty enough to fetch a high price. Likely they would be bought by some pimps, sent to work in Sin City as whores and courtesans. _There are worse fates. If they catch some lord's fancy, they could even become slavegirls and slaveboys._ One of the boys, thin and naked and chained to the others by the throat, was crying.

Naruto looked away. He'd crossed Sawara Bridge and now Madara Square was in front of him. The massive plaza stretched all along the river in both directions, endless row upon row of black stone tiles. In its center lay a large statue of Uchiha Madara, the first Shogun, carved in white dreamstone. Madara rode a horse and his sword was raised high over his head, pointing north toward the imperial palace. The Birthright Imperial Palace loomed directly above the plaza, a sprawling golden fortress on the towering hill of the High District.

_The palace is not so golden today._ Tendrils of smoke still rose up from Birthright Keep, indeed from all over the high city. The attack from two nights ago had done great damage, though not near as much as the slaves had hoped. The Warlord had crushed the rebellion and rounded up all their leaders, so Naruto had heard, a dragon hunting down a conspiracy of rats.

Uchiha Itachi was in Madara Square right now, passing judgment on the traitors.

Naruto walked right up to his master. The Lord of the Blood Country stood on a raised wooden platform in the center of Madara Square, in front of the statue, and thousands of naked slaves were tied to rows of stakes below him. Resplendent in lacquered armor of midnight black and crimson, his face a grim mask of marble fury, Master Itachi looked as fearsome as Naruto had ever seen him. Naruto approached and bowed his head to the floor.

"Master," he said. "I failed you."

"You are making a habit of that lately," said Uchiha Itachi.

"I'm sorry."

"Where were you, boy?"

"I chased the Kitsune to the edge of the palace wall. He ran down the wall into the low city and I jumped down after him. That's the last thing I remember, before I woke up. Then I bandaged my wounds and came here." The lie came easily, more easily than Naruto would've thought. He had never lied to his master before.

"The Demon Fox is a dangerous man," said Minister Sougon Sawar. He was standing on the platform, along with Lord Misain Arashi, the new Admiral of the Scarlet Fleet, and Hayate Inari, the new General of the Army of the North. The Demon Fox had killed their predecessors, it was true, but they had been easily replaced as well. _The hydra does not die until its head is cut off._ Naruto wondered where Sasuke was now.

"I don't disagree, sir," said Misain Arashi, "yet the Kitsune could not have attacked the palace by himself. Look at this conspiracy the Warlord has exposed!" He gestured to the slaves shackled down below. "To think, the Namikaze boy, Hiashi's own nephew, was a traitor!"

Namikaze Nyuka was tied spread-eagled to the stakes, face up and naked, and the Warlord's soldiers were busy raping him in the ass. From the platform Naruto could see Nyuka's face quite clearly. It was a mass of purple bruises and whip scars and bloody golden hair. When one of the soldiers thrust especially hard and Nyuka screamed, his mouth did not seem to have teeth. There was a brand burned into his forehead, Naruto saw, a black twisted cross. A slaveseal.

"He doomed his entire clan," Arashi continued. "They'll be outcast with him!"

"And castrated," Hayate Inari said, with more than a little glee. "The traitorous Namikaze clan shall be no more. They shall live the rest of their brutish lives in the Outcast Districts, unclean slaves, digging graves and slaughtering swine. Once more I bow to your greatness, Lord Itachi. You truly know justice."

"The Kitsune has done me a favor," said the Warlord. Glittering red and black dreamsteel armor plated his entire body from the neck down. "He smoked out all my enemies into the open and I destroyed them."

The Warlord had many enemies. The entire length of Madara Square was filled from end to end with the captive rebels, most of them slaves, but also those who had been highblood nobles. All the Namikaze clan was there, men, women, even the little children. Momochi Zabuza, the pimp of the House of Brotherly Love, was there. The shark bloodline girl was there. Gangs of soldiers prowled the plaza, raping and torturing everyone as they saw fit. The shark girl was stretched out on an iron rack and her scales were being peeled off one by one. She did not scream as much as Naruto expected. The rebels had been receiving the Warlord's justice for some time, no doubt, and they were too delirious to do much more than whimper and sob. The stench of it was the worst. Sweat mixed with heat and blood and shit to form an putrid squalid odor like nothing that Naruto had ever experienced, even at the height of the slave markets. Minister Sawar was politely holding a perfumed cloth to his nose.

"Naruto," said Uchiha Itachi. "Come here."

Naruto was still kneeling on the floor. He swallowed, nervously, but obeyed his master. Was Master Itachi going to beat him? The Warlord was staring at him, deep green eyes glittering beneath the black burned scar. Naruto looked down, unable to meet his master's gaze, not wanting to stare.

Itachi stretched out an armored hand to stroke Naruto's face. "My little slave," his master whispered. The black scale fingers slid across the boy's cheek, then the boy's tangled blonde hair and the bloody bandages on the side of his head. "Take off your clothes."

Naruto swallowed again. He undid the sash around his waist, letting his black kimono flap apart. A shrug of the shoulders sent the kimono tumbling to the floor. Then he reached a hand down between his legs to pull off his loincloth. His little white penis was flaccid and the scrotum hung loosely in the heat.

"The sandals, too," said his master.

Naruto flicked them off his feet one after the other. "Good boy," said the master. His gauntleted left hand was still cupped around Naruto's cheek, almost enclosing Naruto's entire head. It was warm to the touch, but stiff as well. Itachi tightened his grip as he moved closer. "You were badly hurt." Naruto felt another scaled hand stroke the bandages around his torso, fingers tapping, down the curve of his back to fondle his bare ass. "But still beautiful. So lovely."

Itachi moved even closer, circling Naruto now. The master's long silver hair brushed Naruto's shoulder as he stalked behind him. One hand remained against Naruto's jaw, holding it so tight it hurt, while the right hand slid around to his front, between Naruto's legs. Naruto was suddenly aware of his own nakedness, his vulnerability. He could see all the Warlord's advisors staring at him. The Warlord could easily snap his body in half, he knew. Naruto held his arms limp at his sides and did not dare to move.

"Little Naruto," his master murmured. There was a soft wet nip at the nape of Naruto's neck. A kiss. At the same instant his master grabbed Naruto's dick, causing Naruto to gasp at the hardness of the scaled metal. "My slave. My perfect little weapon." His master's lips and tongue pressed hungrily down on Naruto's neck and across his shoulder, licking at the armpit. Naruto moaned. Usually the master would not pleasure him this way. The Warlord's strong arms were wrapped around him, enfolding the boy's slim nude body in an embrace of steel. Naruto's cock stirred, swallowed by huge armored fingers. "I half thought you were dead," Uchiha Itachi said.

Naruto flushed. He did not know how to reply. "But here you are, alive," Itachi continued. His voice was husky with desire. "That is good. You are very important to me, Naruto. You are my right arm." Itachi's fingers slowly kneaded the tip of Naruto's cock. Naruto gasped, shining blue eyes trembling in excitement. "You are my slaveboy."

"I am yours, Master Itachi," Naruto whispered. "I live only to serve you."

"Good boy." The Warlord circled back to the front. As he did so he let go of Naruto's jaw, sliding his left hand around under the arch of Naruto's ass. His right remained fisted tight around his slaveboy's erect penis. "My precious loyal beautiful boy." Naruto felt his asscheeks being pulled apart, and then something warm and very hard slip between into the crack. He gasped at the intrusion, tensing, but his master's hand only pushed further in. A long metal finger twitched inside Naruto, caressing the soft rectal lining. Then another finger, a third. Naruto's sphincter stretched to its limit and he could not help but throw back his head in shuddering pleasure.

Uchiha Itachi's face was towering before him, bronze skin and chiseled jaw and green eyes so dark they were almost black. And above all the hideous twisted burn, the scar that smelled of death.

For the first time, Naruto realized that his master looked like Sasuke.

"Come here," said his master, and for a moment Naruto did not understand how he could get any closer. Then the Warlord lifted him up, thrust his entire hand into Naruto's rectum and raised the naked slaveboy in the air, slamming their bodies together. Naruto cried out with the violence of it. He was dangling helplessly against his master, supported only by a hand in his ass and another hand around his cock, their heads level, eye to eye. Naruto had served Uchiha Itachi his entire life, knew all his moods, yet… yet now Naruto was at a loss, to say what he saw. There was anger in his master's cold face, and hunger, but it was all mixed up, it was all in confusion. "I want you," Uchiha Itachi whispered. He kissed at Naruto's mouth greedily. "You're mine."

"Master…" Naruto gasped. The armored fingers inside him closed and open like claws, tearing at his gut. Blood trickled down his thighs and dripped off his hanging toes. He wanted to tell his master to slow down, to stop, but Itachi's lips were on him and his hot tongue was in Naruto's mouth. Itachi fisted his ass, pushing Naruto upwards, making his smooth little cock slide against suffocating steel. Then he did not want his master to stop at all. Beneath the pain a flood of pleasure surged through Naruto from top to bottom. He kicked his legs, grinding and squirming his prone chest against the plates of his master's armor. His penis was sandwiched so strongly. They kissed again and again, pausing only to breathe.

Naruto came. His dick clenched and then he could feel the semen squirting from it, dribbling down over the shaft. The orgasm was so sudden Naruto did not even have time to shout. It passed through him like a breaking wave, leaving him gasping and panting. The slaveboy fell limp against his master, cheek resting on a cushion of fine silver hair. He felt himself being swallowed. "Let your will be done," Naruto whispered.

"Yes." Itachi lowered Naruto to the floor and slid his left hand from Naruto's ass. When he removed his right, Naruto saw the black metal was covered with sticky white. That was shameful. Never did he ejaculate before his master; a slaveboy was always supposed to wait. But Itachi only brought the hand to his face and licked the semen off the gauntleted dreamsteel, one finger at a time. Then he licked Naruto's smeared brown shit off the other.

Naruto could not remember when Itachi had last eaten his body fluids. Maybe never. The Warlord's advisors were all trying not to gape, averting their eyes. Even some of the outcast slaves shackled near the platform were staring. _There is something different about Master today, I've never seen him like this._ Naruto was not sure if that was good or bad. Would the Warlord still punish him for his failures, or was he safe? _How much dare I do?_

He prostrated himself, naked, head against the floor. "Master." Naruto swallowed before continuing. "Master Itachi, please. May I have your leave to go?"

"Leave?" The Warlord stared with displeasure. Bright afternoon light flowed down his silver hair and rippled across the surface of his polished crimson armor, making the metal plates dance. It was evident that his master was not yet sexually satisfied. Suddenly the master began to cough; he covered it with the back of his hand, but the whole platform could hear the sound. The Warlord did not acknowledge it. "You may go, Naruto," he said. "You are injured. Return to the palace and rest."

Naruto bowed again. The Warlord was already gesturing to the others. "My lords, this slave conspiracy is shattered. Yet the Demon Fox remains at large, and Senju Hagoromo the Butcher sails ever closer to Sawara with his invading army. I would have us discuss our defense plans." Naruto stood and walked down the steps of the wooden platform, across Madara Square and north toward the imperial palace which still smoked in the flushing afternoon sky.

On his way out he passed the outcast shark girl. He could hear her begging. "Please," the bloodline child was hissing. "Please, m'lord, kill me and be done with it." Half the scales on her face had been stripped off, including her nose. Her voice came through the bloody hole where the nose had been, whistling and rattling like the iron chains that bound the shark girl to the stretching rack. Naruto held a sleeve to his face, to ward off the stink, and did not stop. The brutal fisting he'd just endured made it hurt even to stand up, but he walked as quickly as could.

Naruto felt very tired. He felt exhausted, and did not even bother to run a bath when he came back to the palace and collapsed on his master's bed. It was unusually hot, more like summer than spring. A clammy, humid warmth massed in the bedchamber and covered him in suffocating blankets. Sleep came to him swiftly and he welcomed it. It seemed, though, that during the night he had some sort of passionate nightmare, so strong and loud that he woke up Master Itachi with his shrieks. The really unexpected and surprising thing was that afterward, for the life of him, straining all his faculties, he couldn't remember anything about it. How strange. The young slaveboy usually remembered his dreams.


	15. With Both Eyes Open

"Come to Shinjukame Temple at noon today," Naruto gasped, "and you shall have your revenge."

"I'm having it now," breathed Sasuke as he fumbled at Naruto's robe. "On you, for not visiting me." He had pushed Naruto onto the bed, straddling his legs. The other boy grinned wickedly.

"I could not get away," Naruto protested. "The Warlord is busy planning the defense against Hagomoro's invasion."

"Yeah, well. Won't do him no good, 'cuz he'll be dead." Sasuke kissed Naruto, first on the lips, then in a line of playful bites down Naruto's bare chest. His hands were inside Naruto's loincloth. "Aren't ya sorry for leavin' me by myself? Apologize."

Naruto had not meant to have sex, but it was hard to resist, with Sasuke all over him. _I was ambushed from the start._ He had walked into the room and Sasuke had jumped him from behind. "Can ya guess what I'm wearing?" Sasuke had asked.

"Nothing?"

"You're so smart." Sasuke's laugh was like a soft ringing chime. "Aren't I pretty in nothing?"

Then Naruto had to look, and Sasuke had shoved him on top of the sheets to make love. Naruto moaned as Sasuke's quick fingers stroked his cock. "Damnit, it was not easy to come here. You said you needed my help."

"I do." Sasuke shifted his hips, pressing his own naked erection against Naruto's own. He rubbed the shafts together with a sure hand. "Shinjukame Temple, you said."

"My master will be there at noon." It was hard for Naruto to concentrate. Sasuke's penis was slick with arousal, a swollen red rod that slid insistently across Naruto's groin. "The Warlord will pray for victory against Hagoromo, before the shrine of Tethis the Tear-Wiper." Naruto gasped as Sasuke massaged the heads of their cocks over each other. He squirmed, hips jerking.

"Now that's more like it." Sasuke's other hand went to twist Naruto's nipple. "Say sorry again."

Naruto was angry with himself. "Damnit, we've no time for this." Naruto tried to push Sasuke off, sitting upright, but Sasuke only stripped away the rest of his robe. They wrestled for a little bit and then Sasuke had pinned his back against the moldy wooden wall alongside the bed. Naruto struggled as Sasuke kissed him and dug his nails into his sides. "Sasuke! Don't you care about your revenge?"

"It ain't noon yet." The other boy was rubbing their cocks together again. "I ain't seen ya for a week, and it's two weeks since we had proper sex."

"Sasuke!" Naruto shoved hard. Sasuke tumbled back on the sheets, bony limbs sprawling like a cat.

"Aren't you frisky today?" he laughed. The other boy seemed to think it was all foreplay. Maybe it was. Naruto's penis was drenched with pre-cum, visible even in the dim shadows cast by the predawn light. The light filtered through the paper windows behind Sasuke. It framed his nude white body, his smirking mouth and wide jade eyes and scruffy black hair. "Ain't I good enough for ya? Is the Floating World too poor for ya're refined tastes?"

"It is a step up from the whorehouse, I'll grant you."

In truth, it was barely even that. The Floating World was an almshouse. The low city was full of beggars, and not a few lived off the food and shelter the almshouse provided. The proprietor, Anayama Tokusai, was a well-known woodcut artist, from a merchant family. The Floating World had originally been his father's inn. Tokusai employed several servants, and Sasuke had arranged somehow for himself to be bought. With his hair dyed again, dark as raven's feathers, he looked like just another slave.

Naruto knew better.

"I liked the whorehouse," Sasuke pouted. "I like both of 'em better than your golden palace. Not as stuffy."

He crawled back to where Naruto was sitting, laid his hands between Naruto's thighs. Naruto shuddered as Sasuke's thumbs stroked up and down the rim of his erection. "Stop," he said, ashamed. But Sasuke only giggled. He leaned over and guided Naruto's own hands forward. Naruto's fingers grabbed at Sasuke's crotch of their own will. Sasuke moaned, throwing his head back, ribs framed against a pale sinuous chest. His hands tightened on Naruto's shaft. Naruto moaned, too. The other boy's hot slender cock was throbbing in his fist. He pumped his hand up and down in a frenzy. They masturbated each other, so fast the room hummed with rhythmic, slapping sounds. "Sasuke!" Naruto panted. He bent over for a kiss, sucking in Sasuke's sweet breath.

Sasuke grinned. "I want to suck your dick." He pulled Naruto back onto the bed and flipped him on his side. Sasuke's phallus pushed up against Naruto's face, his thighs hugged Naruto's temples. At the other end of his body Naruto felt something warm and spongy engulf his penis. Sasuke had taken Naruto's manhood in his throat.

It was unbearably arousing. "You fucking whore," Naruto grunted, grabbing Sasuke's taut asscheeks. Sasuke's erect member was sticking right at him. The pecker was totally hairless, smooth as baby skin and red as blood. Naruto licked it with his tongue. It tasted like salt and fresh rich meat. "I'm gonna chew your fucking cock off…"

Sasuke chewed him first. Naruto groaned in delight as Sasuke's teeth bit into his manhood, nipping up the shaft. Then Naruto was raking his fingers into Sasuke's wrinkled scrotum and lunging down with his mouth. He had Sasuke by the balls and by the cock. The boys sucked each other desperately. Their young naked bodies writhed, greasy with sweat. Naruto flipped Sasuke onto his back, hips arching as Sasuke ate him out from below. Sasuke bent his knees close, rocking his lithe bony frame in pace to Naruto's mouth. Naruto was on top of him, swallowing him.

Sasuke orgasmed. Naruto had rammed Sasuke's dick all the way to the back of his throat and now waves of fiery cum came erupting out. It seared into Naruto's chest, choking him, but Naruto did not let go a single drop. Sasuke buried his face between Naruto's legs, clutched with all his strength at Naruto's hips. He strained his entire body in ecstasy and then Naruto ejaculated. Climax raced through his head and heart and crotch and into Sasuke's mouth. Naruto screamed at last.

Afterward, still panting, Naruto leaned back against the wall and Sasuke cuddled him. Sasuke wrapped his arms around Naruto's waist and rested his head against Naruto's chest. Naruto could feel the weight of the other boy, smell the musky scent of him. Their half-stiff penises pressed together. "Don't leave me," Sasuke murmured.

Naruto gazed at Sasuke's beautiful face, his eyelashes spiky with tears, and pitied them both.

"I didn't forget," Sasuke said. "About Shinjukame Temple."

"I know."

"Did ya set it up?"

"Yes. It wasn't easy."

"I know that too." Sasuke smiled, jade eyes glistening. He reached a hand up to tousle Naruto's mop of golden hair. "Thank you."

Naruto did not answer.

Instead he drew away from Sasuke, pulling on his robes. Naruto slid open the door to step outside. The chill of the dawn met him, the crisp scent of running water. A small man-made canal ran alongside the almshouse, curving round it on three sides. The Floating World, the locals called it, for the way that the house seemed to rise up from the canal like an island. Even at this hour there were a few pole-barges in the water, carrying barrels of rice or meat or vegetables across the city. The canals were connected together, and to the Haven River; a man so inclined could take a pole-barge upriver all the way to Caiaden, or down into the sea. The boats were dark shapes in the frail light of first day, gliding between the silent streets like wraiths.

The only sounds came from the almshouse. There was a fire in the kitchen on the ground floor, and the bustling of the cooks bubbled through the thin wooden walls. They'd have to make enough food to feed all the beggars who found shelter in the Floating World. No easy task, but honorable work. If he breathed deep, Naruto could almost taste the smoky sizzle of frying fish, the oily warmth of steaming noodle broth. _Sasuke is wrong_ , he thought. _I would not mind staying in such a place. It is poor, perhaps, but peaceful enough._

Sasuke was behind him. "Naruto? You okay?"

"I'm nervous, is all."

"And so serious." Sasuke's hands slipped around Naruto's waist, his cheek nuzzling Naruto's neck. "It'll be all right. Everything ends today."

"Yeah."

They did not say anything else for a long moment. Naruto wanted to close his eyes, feeling the warmth of his lover's body against him, but he did not do that either. Today he needed to act with both eyes open.

"Do you want to learn magic?" Sasuke asked suddenly.

Naruto hesitated. "Don't you have to go sweep the floors or clean the outhouse, or something?"

Sasuke laughed. "Master Tokusai is very fair. I'm his best servant, and it'll only take a morning. Magic's really ain't so hard to learn, once ya know the trick. Even a dummy like you can do it." Sasuke tugged on Naruto's hand, dragging him back into the almshouse. "Here, I'll show you. Would have earlier, if ya'd bothered to visit."

Sasuke led him through the cramped passages of the Floating World, past the kitchen, where he snatched a bowl of white breakfast buns, and then up steep creaking steps to the roof.

They were four stories high. The low city sprawled below them, on the other side of the canal. Jumbled buildings spilled over into dusty streets littered with potholes and horse droppings. Peasants were the largest caste in Sawara, and most of them lived in the Low Districts. In the clear dawn light, Naruto could see the High District far to the southeast, and the imperial palace on its shining peak.

Shinjukame Temple was there, too. The pagoda's ten golden roofs rose upwards in a straight line, like fists, one on top of the other. If Naruto squinted, he could just make out the painted stone gods which warded the temple from demons.

"There," Sasuke said. He walked to the edge of the roof, the sloping eave made of gray clay tiles, and dangled his feet off the side. A cool wind was blowing north from Fire Fan Bay, and it made the flap of Sasuke's loose white kimono rustle like a living thing. "You feel that? That's magic."

Naruto joined him. "What do you mean?"

"The wind. Hagoromo-sama's making it. He's using it to cross the Endless Sea."

"Wind?" Naruto frowned. _One of the five elements._ "I thought you said magic came from inside a person's spirit."

"It does."

"Wind is a natural event, like the motions of the moon. What's that to do with magic?"

"'Cuz wind is energy, too. And you can use spirit energy to create any kind of energy. That's the trick." Sasuke placed his hands on Naruto's shoulders. "I'll show ya. You feel that?"

A warm living sensation seemed to flow through Naruto's body, like blood. "Yeah."

"That's your chakra. Everyone has chakra. It's just most folks don't got enough to use it. You got to be strong, like me."

"I have as much chakra as you," Naruto said. He could sense the chakra moving in Sasuke as well. Sasuke must've had some special power, to help him feel it.

The other boy giggled. "Almost as much. Anyway, watch."

Naruto watched as the chakra flowing through Sasuke shifted direction. It moved inwards along a hundred invisible channels, pooling in his lungs. And then it… _changed_. It was no longer spirit energy, but something very familiar. Something hot and red. Sasuke grinned, opening his lips. A ring of fire came out of his mouth, towards Naruto's face.

Naruto ducked just in time. "Sasuke, damnit!"

"Aw, come'on. That was just a little one. For practice. Did ya see how I made the fire?"

"I saw it all too clearly."

"Now you try. Maybe not with your lungs, that's a bit tough." Sasuke stuck his tongue against the side of his cheek, thinking. "Hands got the most tenketsu—chakra points, I mean. Use your sword. Let the chakra flow from ya're hand into the blade."

"Okay." Naruto tried, trying to pull his chakra toward his hands, and then into the sword he unsheathed from its scabbard. The chakra was not cooperating.

"Ya gotta concentrate, Naruto."

"It's hard."

"Stop thinking about my dick."

"As if. That tiny thing? I'd rather think about peas."

"Mine's as big as yours."

"There!" A flicker of smoke crawled up the edge of Naruto's sword. "I pulled the chakra into the sword, but I can't change the chakra into fire."

"It's okay. Ya're learnin' faster than I thought. Just practice, I'll help ya."

Sasuke laid his hands atop Naruto's own, guiding him. It was much easier with Sasuke's special power to feel chakra, easier than learning from Master Itachi had been. At last Naruto focused all his strength, and the metal blade in his fist leaped into orange flames.

"Good, Naruto!" Sasuke clapped his hands. "See? Told ya magic ain't that hard. Makes ya a stronger fighter, too. The Warlord will never expect it."

Naruto had lost track of the time. He looked at the sun, then at his lover. "It will be noon before long. We must go."

"Yeah." Naruto saw Sasuke's face change. The smile faded away, leaving behind only a tortured shadow of hate. _Like taking off a mask_ , the boy thought, _or putting one on_. This was not Sasuke anymore, it was the Kitsune, and this day the Kitsune meant to kill his half-brother, the Warlord of the Blood Country.

Naruto's master.

They did not say much as they walked down the streets of the low city toward Shinjukame Temple. Naruto was in no mood for talk; Sasuke only stared ahead. The wind was blowing here as well, a soft breeze that whistled through paper windows and the hair of dirty urchin children. Everything was dry. It had not rained for weeks and the water in a few of the canals was so low Naruto could see through to the bottom. A faint reflection looked back at him, a yellow-haired boy in a black robe, with a slaveseal on his forehead. Naruto could see the slaveseal on them both.

When they came to the high marble entrance gate that divided the Low Districts from the High District, the temple was above them. The hill of the high city climbed steeply up, with Birthright Keep like a huge red spear at the very top, and Shinjukame Temple its golden brother. The temple was only a short drive from the palace by palanquin, always convenient. Many emperors had come there to pray for the blessing of the Zen gods.

Uchiha Itachi did so now.

"We'll be there before him," Naruto reminded Sasuke. He had said it all before, but now that they were so close, it was too frightening to stay in his own thoughts. "We'll slip in through the roof, and hide behind the shrine of Tethis the Tear-Wiper."

"Almost," Sasuke said.

The approach to Shinjukame Temple was deceptive. It always seemed closer than it was, it was so large, and each of the ten golden roofs of the central pagoda seemed closer than the last. The two boys snuck on the fifth roof from an adjoining mansion. A many-armed stone sculpture stared down at them from the corner. Khiton the Strength-Spinner, the Zen god of war.

Naruto realized that this was the place where he and Sasuke had first met.

Sasuke had been singing about love, then. _As ye came from the holy land_ _of Shinjukame, met you not with my true love?_ Naruto wondered who had been asking the question, who had answered. Who had dared to answer. _How should I know your true love? As I came from the holy land, that have come, that have gone?_

"Sasuke…"

"Yeah?"

Naruto hesitated. "Are you sure you want to do this? If you fail, the Warlord will take your head."

"If he can get it off my shoulders," Sasuke replied, "he's welcome to it. And I'll do the same to him. Besides, ya're helping me this time. Right, Naruto?"

"Right."

They did not wait long before the Warlord arrived. He came with the sound of drums and fat eunuchs playing flutes, he came in gold silken robes and he came with his sword, the legendary katana Kusanagi, the great heirloom of the Uchiha Clan for hundreds of years.

Naruto could see all of it from his hiding place. Uchiha Itachi walked across the glazed green tiles of the temple to the shrine of Tethis the Tear-Wiper, goddess of peace. His advisors followed: Maito Gai, Sougon Sawar, Misain Arashi, Hayate Inari. They lit incense candles and the sharp scent of smoke drifted in shafts of golden light. Maito Gai blinked, like some stupid owl, though he was the head monk of Shinjukame Temple. A great gong began ringing, from somewhere above them, twelve strokes to mark the time.

It was noon.

" _Almost_ ," Sasuke whispered.

The temple was filled with the sculptures of a thousand painted gods, but Tethis stood alone. The Warlord walked into her alcove and none could see him from outside. Naruto and Sasuke were right next to him, concealed behind a trap wall. With a single step they could encircle the Warlord on either side. The perfect chance for an assassination.

Naruto had carefully arranged it.

There was a strange burning pressure in Naruto's eyes. Not tears, worse than tears, blinding him in flashes. He wanted to scream. _Why did Master choose this shrine?_ The Warlord knelt before the statue of Tethis. The idol was two stories high, carved from white marble and inlaid with pearls and whale bones and ivory. Water trickled in small reflecting pools at her feet. _Why here, to pray for victory in war?_ Tethis the Tear-Wiper was the goddess of peace. Mothers prayed to her, women and priests and slaves. Uchiha Itachi had always prayed to Khiton the Strength-Spinner, and Khiton had never failed him.

Could the Warlord be making a joke?

" _Now!_ " Sasuke mouthed. And then he burst forward into the alcove with his kunai. The Warlord reacted, as Naruto had always said he would, blocking Sasuke's thrust with the Kusanagi. The movement left his back exposed. Naruto was supposed to step from the hidden wall and cut his master open from the spine.

Naruto stepped behind Sasuke instead.

Sasuke turned, confused. "Naruto—"

The slaveboy unsheathed his sword, and as he drove the blade into the Demon Fox's chest, his eyes were cold as frozen ice. "Let the Master's will be done," he whispered.


	16. The Sword with a Soul

Naruto did not sleep. At least, he tried not to. It was easy enough to shut out the bad thoughts, when he was awake, but dreaming was another matter.

In his dreams he could hear Sasuke screaming.

Sasuke screamed when Naruto stabbed him in the chest. He screamed again when Uchiha Itachi dragged him to the dungeons below the imperial palace and began the torture. Naruto hadn't been there to see it, in reality, but that just made the nightmare worse. Sasuke was naked and chained to an iron rack, like the shark girl in Madara Square. Itachi peeled his skin off with a kunai. He fucked Sasuke, too, raped him without mercy. Sasuke screamed and then it wasn't Sasuke in the dream but Naruto. Naruto was a child again, a little boy. " _Do you remember who you are?_ " the master asked him as Naruto struggled against the chains. He was so scared. " _You are my weapon. A rusty weapon…_ " Naruto screamed as the master flayed at his dick. " _The rust must be cleansed. Oh, yes._ " Blood gushed down the boy's legs, black and splotchy red. It was the same color as the burn on his master's forehead. Uchiha Itachi peeled off the burned skin and underneath was the slaveseal. Just like Naruto's own. Then the Warlord began to laugh.

Naruto woke alone.

The silk sheets of his master's bed were still warm, but the master was nowhere to be seen. The Warlord was busy of late.

Naruto got up and went to the adjoining washroom to take a bath. The tub was already filled with steaming water, but the soap was running low, and the chamberpot was faintly odorous. He'd have to order one of the palace slaves to replace it later. Master Itachi had exacting hygienic standards.

After scrubbing himself clean, Naruto pulled on a fresh kimono and went back to the bedchamber. The sheets were sticky; they'd need to be replaced too. It was fortunate that a sea wind was blowing from the open window, or the whole room would be clammy with heat.

Then Naruto remembered that the wind was unnatural.

It was late in the morning, and the sky a clear startling blue. All of Sawara seemed to tumble away below him, terraced roofs and pagodas and sloping wooden houses, falling artistically into the sea. The Haven River danced in sunlight, a sheet of glittering mirrors. The harbor danced as well, danced with the thousand warships of the Scarlet Fleet, ribbed red sails billowing in the wind. His master would be down there now, overseeing the defense.

"He has no chance, you know. The Warlord." A quiet sharp voice, behind Naruto. "Otsutsuki Hagoromo is coming and the Sage of Six Paths will sweep the Warlord away like he never was."

It was the Lady Rin.

"Lady Rin-dono," Naruto told her. "You speak blasphemy."

"I meant to. Every word is as true as your master is false."

The woman who stood by the bed was richly dressed. Her kimono was layered in silk of dark cherry and turquoise, the colors of the Misain clan. A yellow battle standard was stitched to the chest, to honor General Kakashi her dead husband. Fine rainbow gemstones shimmered in her hair. Yet the expensive clothing only made the woman seem all the uglier. Her hair was a clump of brittle reeds, her face was scrunched in like a withered thorn bush. An old hag, she was.

They said Misain Rin had been beautiful once, but Naruto could not see it.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"You know very well. I'm leaving. I should have left thirteen years ago. And I'm taking Uchiha Sasuke with me, before the Warlord lops his head off. It is an insolent head, I grant you, but he only has the one."

"You shall do no such thing." Naruto felt cold, even in the late spring heat. "You're a traitor."

Rin giggled. "Why, thank you."

"I won't betray my master."

"So you betrayed the boy you love."

Naruto didn't answer.

"Let me tell you about love, child. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same. Look at my face. I am just over the age of thirty and I've more wrinkles than a finger after a bath. Thirteen years of grief will do that. Even after I married… Kakashi was not so bad, really. A fool, to be sure, most men are. But I did not love him. I loved Itachi—the _true_ Itachi, not that half-blood fake. I could not forget him. And you will never forget Sasuke, child. No matter how you try. When the sun has set, no candle can replace it."

"I can't," Naruto whispered. Even as he spoke his throat burned, aching; a shudder was in his teeth, in his spines and ribs, cracking him open to the heart. "I can't help you."

"I never claimed otherwise. It's all been arranged." Misain Rin waved her hand. "I only want you to take me down to Sasuke's cell. Can you do that, slaveboy?"

_I can take you down into the dungeons_ , Naruto thought, _but I don't have to bring you back up_.

"Yes, Lady Rin-dono. Follow me."

The descent through the palace was long, winding. Naruto knew the way. They walked out of the Summer Mansion overlooking the sea, where the Warlord made his quarters, and then across the imperial gardens to Birthright Keep. The tower itself was badly burned, but the dungeons beneath were largely untouched. It was cool there, and dark. Branching stone tunnels crossed in every direction, lit only by oil lamps. Naruto could have closed his eyes and still made all the turns. He'd spent a great deal of time here, in his childhood. The stale air was as familiar to him as the sky.

It'd been a week since the ambush in Shinjukame Temple, and Naruto hadn't seen Sasuke at all. But of course he knew where Sasuke was.

It was where the Warlord always tortured his favorites.

"Men," said the Lady Misain Rin. "So attached to their little toys. This place is built like a maze."

"You're one to talk. How long have you been scheming to betray the Warlord?"

"Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening. Though not so long as you might expect." Rin was silent for a while. "For many years I did nothing, in truth. I wish that I had." Then she whispered a poem:

_A life in vain._   
_My looks, talents faded_   
_Like these cherry blossoms_   
_Palling in the endless rains_   
_That I gaze out upon, alone._

"The Old Woman," said Naruto. "By Okki of Kyouko."

"It was Sakura's favorite poem. Itachi did not care much for poetry, he was not that sort. He liked the sun, he liked to run and jump and shout. He liked to make me laugh." Rin's voice was so soft that Naruto strained to hear it above the echoes of their footsteps on the stone. "I loved them both. The fake could not fool me, I knew he was Naruto from the start… the Warlord, I mean. But I was afraid for my life. No one dared question him, after the Night of Blood. And I was lost in a river of grief."

They turned a corner, and in front of them was a heavy iron door, chained by padlocks. It was guarded by four samurai.

"We're here," Naruto said.

"Lady Rin-sama," said one of the samurai, bowing. "We are honored—"

"Let me in, you fool," Rin snapped. "Now."

"Yes, my lady."

When they drew open the door, a stink came rushing out. It was vomit and shit and dried blood, the sharp acrid odor of charred meat. The cell was pitch black. Light from the hall outside leaked in, throwing twisted shadows against the torture chamber walls.

Sasuke was there, chained to the floor.

It was worse than in any of Naruto's nightmares.

He was not screaming. He lay motionless on the cold stone, naked, pale body shrouded with dark ghastly bruises. Many torture instruments were in evidence. Long welted scars from whips, stab wounds from knives, broken nails and bones from metal screws. The burns were the worst. Molten pokers had been thrust into Sasuke's body from head to bottom, mutilating the skin into a mass of charred blisters. The dye had come out of his hair, and the silver locks were matted with blood and with sticky gray cum.

Naruto thought he was dead, until Sasuke raised his head.

"Naruto…" the other boy whispered. His voice was dry as dust.

"Sasuke." There was a long pause. _Dare I say it?_ "I'm here to kill you, Sasuke."

Rin closed the door behind them. The cell was suddenly plunged into darkness, before Rin lit the lamp on the far wall with a candle. "Do you think that's a mercy, boy? It won't be, for either of you."

"No," Sasuke gasped. The look on his face was as cold as the morning moon. "Don't… don't kill me. My revenge… please. Not if you love me."

Naruto closed his eyes. He couldn't look. "There's no need for further torture. The Warlord has extracted all relevant information by now." He couldn't breathe. "I should have killed you in Shinjukame Temple."

Sasuke did not answer. He lay limp in his chains, unconscious.

"I'm sorry," Naruto whispered.

There was a loud thud outside the cell door. Another thud. Then the door swung open and Minister Sougon Sawar stepped inside. A katana was in his hand, dripping blood; the Minister wiped it clean on his red robe. The bodies of the four samurai guards were behind him.

"You're late," Rin said.

"Fashionably so, as always." Minister Sawar chuckled, but his eyes were sharp and shiny as a hawk's. "What of the slaveboy?"

"Naruto wants to kill Sasuke."

"Ah. That is a problem."

Naruto had not expected this turn of events. "Are all of you traitors?" he demanded.

"Certainly," replied the Minister of Coin, "which is to say, every man has his price. Namikaze Nyuka betrayed the Warlord for the sake of conscience. Lady Rin, for love. As for myself, I am a simple man. I know when a ship is sinking, and I would rather not be on it when it does."

"You think Hagoromo will win."

"Don't you?"

"Come with us, Naruto," Rin said. "You've already aided our escape. The Warlord will be furious. Run, before he throws you in the dungeon in Sasuke's place."

Naruto unsheathed his sword. "I haven't aided anything."

"Please," said Sougon Sawar. "Wave that stick around as much as you want. If you meant to use it, you already would have."

"I'm going to kill Sasuke."

"Oh? Do it, then."

Sasuke was right next to him. Naruto could bring his katana down and stab Sasuke through the heart. _Like I meant to do in Shinjukame Temple, except that I missed_. His hand had shaken at the last moment. There was no reason for his hand to shake now. It would be so easy. _So easy to kill them all_. Sougon Sawar was a skilled fighter but he was no match for Naruto. Master Itachi would be very pleased.

Naruto brought his katana down.

He missed again.

The sword scraped the stone beside Sasuke's head, drawing sparks. There was an iron collar around Sasuke's neck, and the tip of the sword shattered the chain which linked the collar to the floor.

"Damnit," Naruto said.

"Indeed," said the Minister of Coin. He made four quick strokes of his own, cutting the rest of Sasuke's chains. Then Rin was lifting up Sasuke's hurt limp body in her arms, surprisingly strong, and walking quickly for the door of the cell.

Sounds came to Naruto's throat as he watched them go.

"Promise me," he whispered. "Promise me that he won't ever come back. That he won't try to kill my master."

Misain Rin stared at him with shriveled dark eyes. "You know I can't."

Then the three of them were gone.

_It was the sword's fault_ , Naruto thought later that night, as he trudged up the steps of the Summer Mansion back to his master's bedchambers. _It did not obey my will._ He was his master's perfect weapon, but his sword had not been. It had moved of its own accord.

The sword with a soul.

Rin was right. The Warlord was furious.

"Master," Naruto told him. "I… I couldn't stop them. It was my fault. Please… please punish me…"

Uchiha Itachi did not move. He sat cross-legged by the window, moonlight spilling down his pale silver hair. His face was a mask. It was made of stone and ice, and Naruto could not look at it without flinching. Those dark merciless eyes, that terrible burned scar. This was the man who had conquered the Blood Country. This was the man who ruled over an entire continent with a cross of twisted iron, the man who, very soon, would be the first Birthright Emperor in five hundred years. This was the man who had raised him.

When the master spoke at last, it was only one word.

"Why?"

The cold voice cut through the night air like a blade. Naruto shivered.

"I…"

"Do not lie to me, little slave."

"Because… I love him."

"Sasuke?"

"Yes."

"And do you love me?"

Naruto faltered. "Master. I… I'm your slave…"

"Is that so? Slaves should not love their masters. I never did. I hated them. That hatred gave me the strength to kill my own family. But you are not me."

"No, master."

"So who are you?"

"I'm your right arm."

"No," said the man. "I do not think so. You hate me."

"Master Itachi—"

"You hate me." Suddenly the man moved, leaping up and kicking Naruto in the gut. Naruto doubled over, gasping in pain. The master grabbed the boy's hair and yanked his head viciously, forcing him onto the bed. "You should hate me."

His master kicked him again, in the crotch. Naruto screamed. His master was raining blows on him, hammer strikes, breaking his ribs, making him vomit blood. His master was going to kill him. He tried to crawl away, but the man wrenched him back with a force that snapped his shoulder from the socket. "Stop!" the boy shrieked.

"Yes. Tell me to stop." The man tore at his slave's clothing, ripping off the kimono, the loincloth. "Flaccid little cock." He stabbed the heel of his foot into the boy's scrotum. Again, kicking him in the balls. Again.

"Stop!" Naruto screamed. "Master… please…"

"Does it hurt?" The master seized the boy by the throat and slammed his head into the wall in front of the bed. Wood splinters slashed at Naruto's face, blood flowing down his cheeks, mixing with his tears. His eyes were on fire. "It should hurt. You are my slave."

" _Please_ …"

The man was on top of him now. He jerked at Naruto's hair, and when Naruto cried out he forced his tongue inside the boy's mouth. It lolled there, hot and vicious. His master kissed him all over, stretching and pulling at Naruto's broken body like a puppet doll. He pressed Naruto flat on his stomach. "My beautiful little boy. Tell me to stop." Naruto had no strength left to struggle. His vision swam with maggots, the color of blood.

"Tell me to stop!" the master screamed. "Tell me to stop!"

His master took him. He took the boy harder than he ever had before, thrusting his manhood again and again into Naruto's rectum, making Naruto shriek in agony. Naruto had never been punished like this. When his master orgasmed, coughing, the slaveboy's dick was shriveled up like a cold dead thing.

Uchiha Itachi was still inside him, still erect. "You are my tool," he said.

"I am your tool," the boy repeated numbly. "I am nothing more."

"You live only to serve me."

"I live only to serve you," the boy repeated.

The Warlord stroked Naruto's face gently then, wiping away the blood. "You know," his master whispered, "I think I like you better this way. When you hate me. Oh, yes, my little slave. As long as you do as you're told."


	17. One More Dawn

The soldiers kneeled in the waves and prayed.

Naruto watched them. At this distance they were like little dots, a swarm of ants in leather and steel armor, pouring out into Fire Fan Bay. A dull roar shook the air as they beat their spears and shields together. Naruto had been on many campaigns, but he'd never see an army so large. The entire strength of the Blood Country was here. Hundreds of thousands of grim men, waiting, for one more dawn.

The Sage of Six Paths was coming.

The latest scouting report had arrived that afternoon. An enormous fleet of golden ships was just south of Sawara, carried onward by a fierce wind. The fleet would be here within hours. Perhaps even before the sun had set; it set late this time of year, the sweet hazy spell between spring and summer. The sun was beside Naruto. It perched atop the ruins of Uchiha Castle, at the eastern mouth of the bay, bright orange like a flame. Soft rosy light washed over the harbor. It colored the waves red, like the sails of the warships of the Scarlet Fleet, like blood.

Blood came out of Naruto's wrist when he pressed the tip of his sword into it. There was pain, but the pain was nothing. It was like a distant memory. The blood flowed from his arm and dripped down into the wild green grass of the Haunted City.

Naruto wondered what would happen if he let all the blood run out and he died. The Zen priests spoke of a wheel of fate; a cycle of karma and reincarnation. Some spoke of heaven, in the mountains beyond the clouds. Some spoke of hell. Naruto did not know. He only knew that death wouldn't be so bad.

_Love is a poison_ , Misain Rin had told him. _A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same_.

Three weeks had passed since Sasuke had escaped with Rin and Sougon Sawar. Three weeks of torment, worse than any of his master's beatings. Naruto's bones and bruises healed quickly. But the wound in his heart festered. Feelings gnawed at his insides, and only when he opened his wrists and watched his own lifeblood drain away, did the pain subside, at least for a moment.

Love was not poison, he thought. It was madness. Naruto was mad, he was possessed by a demon. That was the only explanation. For fifteen years he'd been happy. He had been Master Itachi's favorite. Dutiful, loyal. A good slave… but in three months Sasuke had changed all of that. Sasuke had driven him mad. Sasuke was a demon, he was the Demon Fox.

Naruto let the blood flow until he grew faint. Then he stopped it with a compress, and bandaged the cut. It was not deep enough to leave a scar. They never were. Perhaps his master had noticed the bandages, but the Warlord had never said anything. It didn't matter, as long as Naruto did what he was told.

His master was waiting for him in Uchiha Castle.

The Warlord's generals had set up a command post in the front of the castle, within a large rectangular ruin. The throne room, Naruto thought. Crumbling stone walls still stood on two sides, buried over with moss and vines. Broken towers loomed behind them, and the ground ahead sloped sharply downwards, ending in a rocky beach.

From this vantage point Naruto could see all across Fire Fan Bay. To his right, due north, was the imperial palace, and the Haven River that flowed past it into the bay. The harbor itself was shaped like a circle, widening outwards and then closing back in on itself. Its southern mouth was barely a strait, surrounded on both the east and west by land. The ruins of Uchiha Castle stood at the eastern tip of the harbor mouth, protecting Sawara from attack.

When Naruto looked to his left, toward the Endless Sea, he saw the storm.

In the clear sunset sky it was an edge of clouds, lining the horizon. The clouds were black, and very unnatural. A cold wind blew insistently, driving the storm north. The wind seemed to grow fiercer with each passing minute. Fire Fan Bay was becoming a tempest.

Suddenly Naruto remembered the little paper fans he'd seen in shops in the low city. They were called fire fans, and they were shaped like the bay; the harbor was the circular fan itself, while the handle was the Haven River. The handle was colored white, and the top half of the fan was colored a deep red. Fire fans were very good at creating wind.

They were also very easy to break.

"Come here, boy," the Warlord said, when Naruto joined his war council. "I want a massage."

Uchiha Itachi was reclining on a couch in a gold silk kimono embroidered with ruby dragons. Naruto massaged him while his councilors drank wine and made last preparations for battle. Naruto did not listen very carefully; he'd heard their words all before. The war council seemed to be perpetually discussing the same things over and over again, like trout leaping back to the place they were born.

The new admiral Makoto Tojuen—Misain Arashi and his entire clan had been purged with extreme prejudice after Rin's betrayal—talked about the Scarlet Fleet, he talked about Fire Fan Bay and the natural barrier the mouth of the harbor would present to any invasion by sea. The admiral's eyeballs bulged out so far it seemed that the only thing that held them in their sockets were the mounds of corpulent flesh that ringed his face. His cousin Makoto Satetsu was even fatter. Inari rested his fingers on his plump stomach as he declared his intentions to vanquish Hagoromo the Butcher in single combat. Hyuuga Neji likewise vowed to avenge his father's assassination by killing the Kitsune.

At this Hayate Gatou, a young but decorated general, laughed. "How do you propose to defeat anyone, if you cannot do magic?" he asked. Hayate Inari, his cousin and General of the Army of the North, replied that magic did not exist. That caused much muttering and dissension among the councilors. The monk Maito Gai quoted a Zen sutra that proved magic was an illusion. The Sabaku twins said that money was not an illusion, and that they were losing money every day because the Scarlet Fleet was blocking so much of Fire Fan Bay there was scarcely any room for trading ships to anchor port. The losses were already catastrophic, they insisted. Best to destroy Hagoromo as quickly as possible, so as to resume regular business.

The Warlord spoke little. He listened, watching his advisors squabble with merciless judging eyes. _Master can smell weakness the way a dog smells fear_. Naruto did not need to guess at the Warlord's thoughts. The councilors were all incompetent to a man, every last one. The sole exception had been Sougon Sawar, and he was good only for turning piles of gold into rather larger piles. _It does not matter. If Hagoromo is slain then his army will fall apart as well. The hydra does not die until its head is cut off._ Naruto said so when his master asked him for an opinion, and his master nodded. "Good boy."

By then the massages were done, and Uchiha Itachi was fucking Naruto hard in the ass. Itachi pounded into him from every which way. Every position. On his back, on his hands and knees, on his stomach, with his legs wrapped around his master's torso and around his shoulders and kneeling in to ride him from both directions. The Warlord gave orders to the war council as his manhood drove deep inside the slaveboy, their sweaty bodies slapping together with every thrust. Naruto screamed his master's name. He was screaming it when Uchiha Itachi reached a climax, hot speed spilling into his upturned ass, and screamed it again when Itachi offered him a reach around. The Warlord gave a last terse order and pulled out.

"I shall greet Senju Hagoromo with justice," he said. "The Butcher shall not escape."

All the councilors bowed. Then they left, to prepare their armies. Naruto was alone with his master, in the broken charred remains of Uchiha Castle.

"My armor," the Warlord ordered.

Naruto obeyed. First he put on the Warlord's undergarments: loincloth, thick felt shirt, leather pants. Then he added padded quilt cushioning to vital body areas. Leather gloves came next, socks and mail boots. An overcoat of light chain mail was draped atop the padding. Finally came the body armor, a full set of lacquered dreamsteel plate. Each piece needed to be strapped on one by one. Greaves and leg guards first, then the steel skirt, gauntlets and scaled sleeves, breastplate and shoulder pads. After Naruto fastened his master's sword belt, the Kusanagi almost weightless in its scabbard, the last remaining piece was the helmet. But the Warlord rarely bothered to wear the helm into battle. He preferred his enemies to see his face, before he killed them. It was a fearsome face, even more frightening than the crimson and black steel.

No one ever wanted to see the Warlord's scar.

It took several minutes to put on the armor, and by the time Naruto was done it was growing dark. The sun was a brilliant sliver of red, just peeking over the collapsed towers. In the dusk Uchiha Itachi was like a giant bird of prey. His long hair flapped in the wind like outstretched silver wings. Rubies gleamed in his black breastplate, the shape of a soaring raven.

"Put on your robe," the Warlord said.

Naruto did so.

"Good boy."

"I live to serve you, Master."

"Yes." The man cupped a hand around the boy's cheek, bending down for a kiss. "You shall fight by my side."

"I'll kill him," Naruto said suddenly. "Sasuke. I will, I promise."

"My foolish little slave." His master's tone was flat as marble. "Do not make promises you can't keep. It is of no account, however. I ask you only to protect me. I can brook no distractions, when I face Hagoromo. He is a very powerful sorcerer. And a bloodline child."

Naruto bowed his face to the grass. "I'm sorry. I… I'll try."

Uchiha Itachi looked south. The storm was much closer than before. It churned above the Endless Sea, a mass of impenetrable swirling black. Lightning streaked across the horizon, bursts of white on the sunset water. The wind howled through the lichen-crusted carcass of Uchiha Castle. Soon it would be raining, and soon thousands of men would be dead in puddles of their own blood.

"Do you know why I named you?" Itachi asked.

"Master?"

"I never told you. I could not, before you knew the truth. Perhaps I should have told you earlier. You had no name when I picked you out of that pile of corpses. To this day I do not know how you survived. You should have been dead." Itachi coughed into his armored fist. "I should have been dead as well. My mother named me after her father, Kaguya Naruto… a great warrior. I was no warrior, not then. I was a sickly child. A dozen times I went to sleep and my mother thought I would never rise again. But in the end it was my mother who died. I lived on… I clung to life. Do you understand? That is why I gave you my name."

"Why did you make me a slave?" The words slipped out of Naruto before he knew what he was doing, too late to take back. Naruto had never asked that question in his life.

"Because I could," said Uchiha Itachi. "And because an Emperor must have slaves, or he is no Emperor at all. An Emperor is the master of the people. The Birthright Emperor must be a god."

The Warlord of Blood raised his face to the sky. His eyes seemed to burn in the blaze of the setting sun, as if he was lost in reflection, as if he was recalling a memory from long ago. "One day they shall all be mine," he whispered, and walked towards the storming beach.

Towards the end.

The slave followed in his master's wake.


	18. Hereafter, Part 1

The Sage of Six Paths came to the shores of Uchiha Castle with the storm.

He came with fire and lightning.

Fire consumed the warships of the Scarlet Fleet, lightning exploded the towers of the Birthright Imperial Palace. In a flash the entire world was burning. Fire Fan Bay was a maelstrom of flames, of great sailed ships, blood red and blazing gold, ramming each other to the death. Naruto did not know how the enemy fleet had entered the harbor. The Warlord had laid a thick iron chain across the mouth of the bay, but somehow the chain had been broken. The wind blew the fire north across the waves, leaping from sail to sail. Not like any fire Naruto had ever seen. It was so hot it was almost white, and even in the drenching rain of the storm it was not quenched. Chain lightning came down on the high city like a thousand crooked fingers. Sawara itself was burning in the unholy flames, in the screaming night sky.

"They are here," said Uchiha Itachi.

A ship crashed onto the shore before them, as if in answer. It screeched against the rocks, wooden prow splintering apart on impact. A flash of lightning into the gloom, and Naruto saw the foremast topple, saw a billowing golden sail fall forward onto the beach. The sail had the Sage's banner stitched across it, a spiraling eye within a six-sided wall. The eye seemed to make the ground shake, to make the wind howl and rip at their hands and faces and mouths. Naruto could barely stand.

"Gods!" Makoto Satetsu shrieked above the storm.

"Demons," said General Hayate Gatou, and then, "Attack!"

Dark shapes slithered from the belly of the broken ship, running up the beach toward Uchiha Castle. Volleys of fire arrows flew across the gap, thick as the lashing rain. The first enemies dropped, but more took their place, more invaders from more ships. They were close enough that Naruto could hear them scream. "For the Sage!" they shouted. "For Kiyome! For Kiyome!" The two armies met in a deafening clang of steel. Samurai on horses clashed with swords, footmen ran each other through with pikes and spears. Thousands of them, teeming and swarming, attacking each other in waves, like two tides breaking on each other, and each time the water that tossed and sloshed was human blood. Smoke and rain and thunder flooded the air, the cries of desperate men, the thudding beat of war drums, agony and triumph and rage all churned together into one endless scream on the rock-strewn shore.

It sounded like death.

"Hold the line!" General Gatou shouted. The Blood Country defenders closed ranks, circling the enemy forces like a turtle shell. The line held, except in the very center. A small group of dark shapes mowed through all defense, aiming straight for the Warlord's encampment.

_Ninja_ , Naruto knew, _Hagoromo's elite warriors_. They wore not robes, nor armor, but ninja garb, tight black cloth that clung to the curves of their bodies. Kunai daggers whirled in their hands, flashing out to cut the throats of any samurai that stood in their way. In the raging storm they were silent as ghosts.

The Warlord spoke a word.

"Suiton!"

A torrent of black water exploded from Uchiha Itachi's hands. The magic wave swept over the attacking ninja, drowning them. When it receded, a dozen black shapes were crumpled against the ruined walls of Uchiha Castle. They had been flattened like a roll of dough.

Somehow most of the ninja had survived. "Doton!" one called, fingers flashing in complex patterns. He slammed his fist to the ground.

The earth shook. It convulsed, as if in pain, once, twice. Then it caved in on itself. Horses screamed as they toppled into sinkholes, taking their riders down with them. Naruto leaped away from the quaking earth, but the air was filled with spinning shurikens. Paper tags flapped in the hollow centers, burning with magic seals. _Exploding tags_ , the Warlord had called them. They burst apart in the sky, ringing the remains of Uchiha Castle like a string of brilliant firecrackers.

Where they burst, the bodies of men burst too.

Naruto landed hard in a bed of long wet grass. He held his katana before him, rain beating at his face, drenching his robes. The Warlord's command post had been secure only a moment before, but now all was chaos. The ninja were among them now, dark slippery shadows, fighting the Warlord's bodyguards, his generals. Fighting the Warlord himself. Uchiha Itachi sliced his enemies from head to groin with the red Kusanagi blade, the edge so sharp it whistled as it cut through falling raindrops. _Hagoromo is not here_ , Naruto thought. _Where is he?_

Where was Sasuke?

"Behind you," a voice said. Almost too soft to be heard, in the raging storm, but it carried just far enough.

It was the Demon Fox.

Naruto turned. He could see the whites of the ninja's eyes, all three of them. A white bandana was wrapped around the ninja's forehead, and a golden spiraling eye stared out from the center, as if the Sage of Six Paths was staring out through it. Perhaps he was. Naruto didn't know. He only knew the ninja's real eyes, large and green, catching the light of the fires on the distant water.

He knew those eyes as well as he'd ever known anything in his life.

"Sasuke," said Naruto. "You shouldn't have come back."

"I won't run, not any more." The ninja wore no mask, and the wet hair that spilled around the bandana was gleaming silver. "Get out of my way, Naruto."

"I cannot allow you to harm my master."

"Your master murdered my entire family!"

"Good," Naruto said.

He could see the shock on Sasuke's face, twisting his pale features. The other boy raised his twin kunai in front of him. "You don't mean that."

"Of course I do. Uchiha Itachi is the greatest man that has ever lived, and your family was weak. They deserved to die."

"Shut up!" Sasuke yelled. He charged, thrusting his kunai at Naruto's chest. "I'll kill you too, if I have too!"

Naruto met the thrust with his katana, but as he did so Sasuke's kunai flashed with blue jagged streaks. _Lightning_! The lightning-chakra edge slashed right through Naruto's katana, breaking the steel shaft in two. Too late Naruto tried to dodge. Sasuke spun around and kicked Naruto sideways in the head. His face slammed into a nearby granite pillar, sending lichen-cracked stones tumbling down on his stomach. Naruto groaned, struggling to get up. His nose was broken, and blood streamed down his mouth and chin, mixing with the rain.

"Stay down!" Sasuke yelled.

"I prefer to stand." Naruto dug his fingers into the pillar, pulling himself to his feet. "If you don't like that, you'll have to hit me harder. I know you can."

"I fear for your life."

"Fear that I might keep it, you mean."

"Do you really want me to kill you?" Sasuke's eyes narrowed into slits. "After what you did to me, maybe I should. You betrayed me, Naruto. You said you loved me, but you broke my heart."

His daggers swung down in a slashing arc.

Naruto blocked them with his sword.

The katana was shattered almost at the hilt, but a blade of burning chakra shot out from the jagged stump. A fire sword. Blazing red flames formed the shape of the broken katana, the edge of it strong enough to stop even lightning.

Naruto grinned. "Didn't expect that, did you?"

Sasuke stepped back. There was wariness in his voice. "The Warlord has been teaching you magic."

"And I'm just as strong as you." A current of living heat surged through Naruto's body. The chakra intoxicated him, it made his blood burn, as if it was not blood but screaming golden light. He was more than human, he was death itself. "Come, Demon Fox, and let us dance."

Naruto came at Sasuke with his sword of flames. Sasuke met him blow for blow, twin kunai a blur of flashing silver. Sparks exploded where their weapons touched, fire and lightning, blistering Naruto's exposed skin. But Naruto did not relent for even a moment. He drove the ninja back, on and on, deeper into the shattered maze of Uchiha Castle. Rain came down upon them in a curtain of tears. Water hissed against the edge of Naruto's burning sword, turning into steam. The fighting was all around them, the clang of steel on steel. Wind rattled through the rubble like sharp frozen needles. Screams came with it, and the taste of mud and excrement and the sea. An enormous pillar of lightning crashed into the center of Fire Fan Bay, a white flash as bright as noonday, though it was the dead of the night.

Naruto saw Sasuke. In the glare the ninja was lit up like a torch, all muted colors, bleached white and gray. Only his eyes glittered. They were faceted jewels, round and hard as polished emerald.

The other boy saw him, too.

" _Naruto_ ," he mouthed with his lips. Thunder crested the horizon, swallowing all sound.

Naruto swung his katana. The strike slipped past Sasuke's kunai and down the ninja's right flank, carving Sasuke's flesh with fire. Sasuke gasped, stumbling backward. He was pinned against a granite wall. Naruto recognized the wall as part of the original throne room of Uchiha Castle. It was thick enough to support the weight of an entire castle, but now it was only as high as Sasuke's chest. Beyond the wall, Naruto could see the harbor, roiling with burning wooden warships. The flaming masts of the Scarlet Fleet were like a forest of crosses, like the flag of the Blood Country, not black but orange red. A swarm of cinders rose into the storm, dancing over Sawara city.

Sasuke was breathing hard. "Give me the sword, Naruto."

"Oh, I will."

Naruto lunged again, this time attacking from above. Sasuke dodged to the side, and Naruto's blow sliced right through the granite wall, right through the vines to the muddy ground. The dirt started to smoke.

" _Stop_ ," Sasuke said. "You've lost, can't you see that? Your army is gone. Sawara is gone. Stop fighting me!"

"I can't." Naruto raised his sword. "You are the enemy."

"Naruto, _please_. I love you." The words were edged in bitterness. "Even if you're just a good little slave."

"Still want to free me, Sasuke?"

"You stabbed me in the back, last time I tried."

"I was aiming for your heart."

"Damnit!" Sasuke shook his head in frustration. "Damnit, why won't ya let me help you?"

"Maybe I don't want your help. Maybe you don't know anything about me." Naruto attacked him, sword whirling, a hundred furious cuts of blazing fire. Sasuke parried every one. Sparks flew, and the force of it shot up Naruto's arm and jarred his teeth together. He yelled in rage. "How can you love me, if you don't know who I am?" Blood was ringing in his ears, in his burning eyes. "I'm a slave! I am Master Itachi's perfect weapon."

"You don't have to be!" Sasuke shouted. "You have a choice!"

"There's no such thing!" Naruto spun, striking at Sasuke's throat. "There's only fate."

Sasuke turned aside the cut, and suddenly he was on the offense. The daggers were short but very quick; they slashed with blue lightning at Naruto's face. It was all Naruto could do to keep his head on his neck. "We make our own fates!"

Naruto staggered back, panting. "What about love?"

"What?"

"Did you choose to love me?"

Sasuke hesitated, silent.

"Did you choose to love me?" Naruto said again.

"You dummy." Sasuke's eyes gleamed in the storm. " _You asshole_ … is that you what you really think love is? That it's like a shackle? Something you'd get rid of, if you could? That's not love, Naruto! That's your master, don't you see that? True love is the most precious thing in the world. It's what makes this damn life worth living. True love is a choice… and _don't you_ _ever say_ that I didn't choose you!"

"Is that all?" Naruto asked.

Then the slaveboy began to laugh.

"Naruto—"

"You're a fool, Sasuke. Love is nothing more than a speck of dust. It is a grain of sand, washed away in an instant by the tides of fate. Only destiny remains."

"Love can change destiny."

"Can it?" sneered Naruto. "Sweet words, like perfume on a corpse. Your very existence puts the lie to the claim. Will you give up your revenge, because you love me? Would you _choose_ me, over Uchiha Itachi?"

Sasuke did not answer.

"Have I shut you up at last? You dumb whore, did I cut out your tongue?" Naruto laughed wildly. "It's no choice at all, when pushed to the point. And I'm just the same as you. I choose my master over love. Go away, Kitsune, lay down and die and be done with it!"

He struck with all the strength he had, but too slow. Sasuke rolled under him, coming up from behind.

"Bunshin!" Sasuke cried.

Naruto turned just in time to see the ninja make a chakra seal with his hands. Tendrils of smoke snaked from his body and twisted into human shapes. Three of them, just like Sasuke, identical even to the blood that trickled from the wounds in their sides. _Magic clones_ , Naruto knew. They were illusions, nothing more.

Yet when they leaped at him it was hard to tell which was the illusion, and which was the real Sasuke. Naruto hacked at the two closest, taking their heads off. The clones vanished in a puff of smoke. At the same moment Naruto felt a dagger slash down his back. He yelled, stumbling forward. The cut was deep and very painful. He lost his focus, and his chakra sword flickered out of existence. Sasuke knocked the useless hilt from his hand. Then he knocked Naruto's head into the mud.

Naruto groaned, face in the dirty wet grass. "Stay down!" Sasuke said.

_He thinks I'm beaten._ Naruto twisted suddenly. "Katon!" he screamed, fingers molding chakra that flooded up his arms and into his lungs and exploded out of his mouth.

Sasuke backflipped at the last possible instant. The fireball shot past him, crackling in the rain, bathing the collapsed throne room of Uchiha Castle in dazzling light. Naruto struggled to his hands and knees. When he looked up, the Kitsune was standing before him, a black-and-silver shadow against burning red flames, against the broken haunted towers of the place that had once been his home.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered.

"I said stay down!" Sasuke stretched his fingertips out at Naruto's chest. And then, "Raiton!"

Blue lightning streaked from Sasuke's fingers. The electricity arced through Naruto's body, flashing across his bones. Naruto shrieked, and then he could not shriek, because he could not move. He could not feel anything. He collapsed to the ground, numb all over. What had Sasuke done to him? Naruto could not even wiggle his toes. _I am as good as dead._

He could still see, though. He could see Sasuke's feet as they ran past him, and hear his soft footsteps on the grass. There was a very loud roar to the west, in another part of the castle. A screech like a whirlwind. Sasuke was running over there. _Master Itachi_ , Naruto thought. Was his master fighting Hagoromo? _He wanted me to protect him._

_I won't fail_! There had to be a way to counter Sasuke's lightning jutsu. But how? Unless…

Naruto concentrated, trying to feel his chakra. Yes, _there_. It still flowed through his body. Naruto tried to push the chakra into his muscles, to restore their strength. It was like pushing against a wall of numb stone. Sasuke's chakra blocked his every attempt.

_I need to push harder_. Naruto pushed until he thought his chakra points were going to explode. The tenketsu in his hands swelled, in his stomach and chest, and in his eyes. His eyes were burning. Pressure built up against his pupils, floodwater behind a cracking dam. His vision blurred, blinked in and out. One moment the world was vague gray shapes, the next painted in kaleidoscope color, sharper than he'd ever seen. And with each image came a stab of pain. Almost Naruto drew back, but then he realized pain was good. Pain meant his body was working again. _Just a little more_ …

The numbness faded slowly. Naruto staggered to his feet. He could scarcely do more than walk, and barely that, lurching across the ruins of Uchiha Castle. He used crumbling stone walls for a handhold, and sometimes piles of warm corpses. The castle was strangely quiet; the dead far outnumbered the living.

When he reached the beach he saw why.

The Warlord Uchiha Itachi stood on the rocky bluffs at the edge of the castle, overlooking the mouth of Fire Fan Bay. Firelight from the burning city across the harbor made the plates of his dreamsteel armor glisten like black pearls. Rain poured from the sky, blown sideways by a tempest wind. Silver hair streamed behind the Warlord's face, the same length as the white Kusanagi sword he raised over his head.

Water dragons came out of the sword and destroyed all his enemies.

Men in white armor landed on the beach by the thousands. The dragons screeched, vast snaking monsters of black liquid, and washed them all back screaming into the Endless Sea. "Hagoromo!" the Warlord shouted into the storm. "Hagoromo, where are you? Come and face me!"

"I'm not done yet," said a feral voice.

It was Sasuke. Sasuke was picking himself out from under a heap of armor-clad bodies. Naruto recognized the corpse of General Hayate Gatou, and his brother General Hayate Inari. He recognized Makoto Tojuen, and Hyuuga Neji, and the Zen monk Maito Gai. All dead. Sasuke's clothes were half stripped off, where a water dragon had hit him and torn the ninja garb apart. He was holding a hand to his chest.

_Sasuke_ , Naruto tried to call, but the words tangled on his numb tongue. Nothing came out, and he could only watch as Sasuke ran at the Warlord.

Itachi flicked the Kusanagi at Sasuke. A black water dragon came screeching from the tip, too large to dodge. Sasuke threw a clutch of shuriken with exploding tags. The explosions connected, blowing holes of hissing steam in the dragon's bulk. Sasuke leaped through and stretched out his hands. "Raiton!" he shouted.

Lightning flashed across the cliffs. Itachi blocked the attack with his sword. The electricity charged the Kusanagi and did not damage it. "Foolish little fox," Itachi said. He flung the lightning back at Sasuke, who ducked just in time. "You cannot defeat me. Where is your master, slaveboy?"

"I'm not a slave!" Sasuke launched at himself at the Warlord. "You tried to make me one, but I never was." He slashed with his kunai, Itachi parrying the thrusts. "I'll kill you! _I hate you!_ "

"Good," said the Warlord. "Hate is good. Hate means you're still alive." He laughed, cruel and hollow. Then he struck at Sasuke's head. Sasuke hissed as the Kusanagi opened his cheek like a overripe fruit. "Hate makes you strong. A week spent in my dungeons has done wonders for you, I think. You fight much better than before. After I kill your master, I shall be sure to put you back there."

"Never!" Sasuke drew a fistful of shuriken from the waist pouch and threw them at Itachi's feet. A dozen paper tags burned, erupted in blazing violence. Explosions rocked the rocky bluffs. In the billowing haze Naruto couldn't see anything. What had happened? He stumbled forward, trying to will himself back to fighting condition.

Uchiha Itachi emerged from the haze. His armor had not a scratch. He held his sword before him, and Sasuke was impaled on it in the chest.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted. He felt his heart twisting, felt his eyes blur.

The bunshin vanished into smoke.

The real Sasuke rose behind the Warlord. Itachi turned, confused, but not fast enough. "I am an avenger!" Sasuke screamed. " _Katon_!"

The fireball consumed Uchiha Itachi at point blank range. It was immense, larger than any explosion Naruto had ever seen. It was an inferno of white heat, and when the roaring flames subsided, there was nothing left where a man had been.

"Master Itachi!" Naruto screamed.

But Sasuke was stumbling backward. "No," he whispered. "No, _no_ , it can't be…"

From the white nothing, came the sound of laughter.

Itachi's armor was gone. The black and crimson dreamsteel had boiled away. His hair was gone too. But the rest of him… at first Naruto could not see it, could not make it out. His master's body was so white that it seemed he was made of snow.

Not snow. Bones.

Uchiha Itachi was covered in bones.

" _A bloodline_ ," Sasuke gasped. "You're…"

The Warlord laughed, turning his skeleton to face them both. "This is how I killed them all," he said. A long curving bone grew from the palm of his hand. "This is how I fulfilled the Night of Blood. My power, my Shikkasaimyaku! No one can stand before me. Not you, not Otsutsuki Hagoromo. Not even fate itself." Sharp white spikes burst from every joint on the Warlord's body. "Now, little fox, you shall die as your family died, as your pathetic brother died, when I thrust my bones through his heart."


	19. Hereafter, Part 2

Rain lashed down upon Uchiha Castle in the night, washing away the blood of the dead. It ran in black rivers across the ruined temple grounds, down the steep rocky bluffs to the Endless Sea. Angry waves crashed against the rocks, dashing burning warships into little pieces. The sound they made was louder than the howling wind, louder than even the thunder in the sky. Storm clouds churned above the castle, red and white in the smoke of a thousand fires. Naruto could smell the ash even through the sharp cold rain.

The living seemed not much different than the dead. Naruto felt like a ghost, there on the battlefield, knee-deep in muddy corpses. Pockets of soldiers still stood, but none of them fought.

They all looked toward the bluffs.

The Warlord of Blood was a white statue, glistening in the rain. He could have been made of marble, he was so motionless. Only by the voice that rang out in the night did Naruto know that his master was still alive.

"Fools," said Uchiha Itachi. "I am invincible. I am the Emperor of Birthright!"

"I won't let you," said a raw voice. A child, a ragged ninja shivering before the Warlord. So small, so desperate. "I'll kill you!" Sasuke slashed at the Warlord's face and chest and groin. Blades of blue lightning screeched as they struck the bone, again and again.

"I am God!" Itachi declared.

The Kusanagi sword was in his right hand, a spear of bone in his left. As Naruto watched more bones crawled up the Kusanagi like entangling vines. The vines sprouted white thorns, until the sword was a silver mace with a thousand bladed edges. The bone in his right hand grew longer. Soon it was longer than any spear, and then it was longer than the mast of a great warship.

It spiraled into the cinder sky, as if to pierce the moon hidden behind the clouds.

"Run!" someone shouted.

Naruto did not know who it was, what side had taken up the call. It made no difference. As one the soldiers threw down their weapons and ran, Blood and Kiyome alike. They were running for their lives.

They did not get very far.

The tower of bone exploded. It burst like a seedpod, insides scattering to the wind. And everything inside was a long white spear. The spikes of bone rammed in the ground, rammed into rocks and into the backs of the fleeing soldiers. One came straight for Naruto. He threw himself to the side, and was almost impaled by another spike just in front of his head.

Naruto staggered to his feet. The numbness was leaving him at last, but that only made him aware of his wounds. His face was badly bruised, and he had lost much blood from the deep cut on his back. _I cannot just stand here_. He was his master's right arm, he had to help him. Abruptly Naruto realized that he had no sword. He pulled one from the throat of a passing corpse as he ran toward the cliffs where Sasuke and the Warlord fought.

"I am the Emperor," Uchiha Itachi was saying again.

"No," Sasuke said, "no, you're a murderer." He was sprawled on the ground, an earthen barrier curved around his body like a shield. A hundred spears of bone stuck through it, they pierced it and broke the front of the barrier into rubble. One of the spears had sliced through the edge of Sasuke's calf. The hamstring, black blood welling from the wound. He tried to stand up, but stumbled backwards onto his side. "You're a murderer!"

"The false god Hagoromo shall fall before me. I am the true master of fate."

"Master Itachi!" Naruto said. He dodged around the bones that littered the battlefield and came to a stop next to his master. "Master—"

"Where is he, little fox?" the Warlord asked. He did not seem to know that Naruto was even there. "Where is Senju Hagoromo?"

Sasuke raised his head to stare at them, eyes wide. The bandana on his forehead had been torn away, revealing the black twisted slaveseal underneath. Rain dripped from his silver hair and across the slaveseal and then over his eyes and down his bloody cheeks. It almost looked like tears. "The Sage of Six Paths would crush you like a maggot," he said. A noise came from his throat, bitter jagged laughter. "I made him promise. I made promise to stay away, so I could have my revenge to myself. And I will, you traitor bastard. _Katon_!"

Fire flew from his mouth. In an instant the Warlord was swathed in an furnace of orange-red flames. The blast was so powerful that Naruto was knocked back hard in the air.

"Die!" Sasuke screamed.

Even before the fireball faded he was already casting more jutsu. He threw exploding tags. Shuriken disappeared into the inferno and exploded, roaring shockwaves that shook the rocky bluffs. "Die, die, _die_!" he screamed. Sasuke threw all the shuriken he had. Then he threw lightning, he called down arrows of ripping wind, and maws of churning mud, and then jutsu Naruto did not even know, could not even describe in their ferocity. Naruto wanted to stop Sasuke, to protect his master, but he could scarcely even stumble to his feet. He held his katana before the onslaught and tried to hold on.

When it was finally done, Sasuke collapsed, falling to his knees and sucking down gulps of air.

Uchiha Itachi stood there as if nothing had happened.

"Master!" Naruto shouted.

Naruto scrambled toward the Warlord. His master was a fog of gray, threads of smoke that coiled from sharp curving bones, too hot to touch. Yet there was not a scratch on them. "Master, are you all right?"

"Naruto," said the Warlord. "My dear loyal slave."

"Master. Let me help you." The words were hollow even as they left his lips. _How can I help Master? He is invincible, he cannot be hurt!_ Up close, Naruto could see exactly what had happened to the Warlord. It was not that he was covered in bones, as Naruto had thought.

He was made of bone.

_Shikkasaimyaku_ , the Warlord had called his bloodline. _Dead Bone Pulse_. Somehow he had kept it a secret all these years, had never used it in battle until now. Perhaps he did not want his subjects to know that he had such powers. _Inhuman powers_. The Warlord seemed no longer a man, but a grotesque statue of skeletal spikes.

He seemed like a demon. The bones had replaced his entire body. It was like a snake that had shed its skin, only instead of scales underneath, it was hard cold bone. The skin of bone sheathed his hulking frame, his limbs and groin and chest. And his face. It was the same face, a mask of grim chiseled rage, luminous green eyes sharp as swords.

Only the scar was gone. The top of the Warlord's head was like an egg, as smooth and white as ice.

"You cannot help me," said his master. "No one has ever helped me. Not once in my cursed life."

"Liar!" Sasuke gasped, rising to his feet. "You damn liar, Itachi was your best friend! He would've freed you! And Sakura, and mother! They trusted you and _you killed them_!"

"You cannot comprehend it, little boy. Do you think I fight against you? Your army? Even against Senju Hagoromo? You are nothing more than swine before me. I was conceived in the womb of anguish. I was shaped from the flesh of the devil himself."

Itachi brought down the Kusanagi, a thousand refracted edges. Sasuke leaped back, evading Itachi's strike. The Warlord was so fast. Each stroke of his sword was as furious as the storm, as brutal as the crashing waves, the paper and wood ash of burning Sawara. The Kusanagi ripped at Sasuke's shoulder, bony blades tearing at his flesh. Sasuke fell in the mud. "No!" he cried. "No, I won't lose!"

Itachi raised the Kusanagi for the killing blow. For a second he almost seemed to hesitate. He made a strangled sound in his throat, and Naruto thought it was a coughing spasm, until the sound grew, became a peal of roaring laughter. The Warlord's laughter rang through the air and into the ghostly remains of Uchiha Castle. It seemed to shake the very storm.

"My life was cursed from the day of my tormented birth. Yet it only made me stronger. The wheel of fate turns, but I stand unbroken. Destiny causes the suffering of mankind, but I shall bring justice. To each, what is owed. Am I not owed the world? Am I not owed that which I have taken with my own hands? I am the Emperor of Birthright! I have become God! And you, all of you, my worshipping subjects. You shall all kneel before me!"

"Never!" Sasuke screamed.

Bones shot out of the ground behind him. Bones everywhere, grinding and ripping and wailing from the muddy stones. A forest of bones, tall as trees, as twisted as a spiderweb, drinking up all the rain from the sky.

Naruto reeled back, a pylon of bone spurting out of the ground by his feet. He staggered around in the deafening confusion, and found himself face to face with Sasuke. There were bones between them. They surrounded Sasuke, enclosing him in a cage of glistening white. "Naruto!" Sasuke cried. He tried to cut the bones with his kunai, but it was like cutting steel bars with a blade of grass. Naruto could see the fear in his glittering jade eyes, he could feel the other boy's hot frantic breath. "Naruto, please. Help me."

Spears of bone erupted beneath Sasuke and stabbed through the palm of his hands. He screamed, dropping his kunai. The bones retracted gradually, forcing him toward the ground, forcing his knees to bend. "Never!" Sasuke screamed again.

"I am Justice." The Warlord walked through the cage of bones. It merged into his body as he passed, as if there was no difference between them, as if the bone was just an extension of himself. Then he was before Sasuke, a white giant towering over a defeated, broken child. "I am God. I am your Master! And you… shall… kneel!"

Sasuke knelt.

Sasuke sagged, and then all the fight went out of him. It went out like the blood flowing from the gashes all over his body. He bowed his head, fettered by unyielding bones.

He started to cry.

Uchiha Itachi laughed. "Now that's a good boy. Stay like that, while I mutilate you, and perhaps if you scream piteously enough, Hagoromo will be so good as to show his ugly wooden face, so I might carve a slaveseal into it."

Bones grew from his torso, snaking spikes that divided again and again, like the branches on a tree. The canopy of barbs slithered towards Sasuke, towards his neck and armpits and nipples and the place between Sasuke's legs. Where they made contact, Sasuke shrieked.

Sasuke's chest shook up and down with wracking sobs. "Naruto," he whispered. "Naruto, help me!"

"Sasuke," said Naruto. He tried to look away, to close his throbbing eyes, but he could not shut his ears.

"Naruto. I love you! Please, don't you love me?"

_I never wanted to._ Sasuke was wrong about that, so very wrong. _Loving you was the last bloody thing I would've ever done._

But love was not a choice.

It was fate.

And fate was the only real thing in the world.

"Master," the slaveboy whispered. "Master, please."

The canopy of bones stopped moving. The Warlord turned, dark eyes in a white face.

"Please, master. Don't kill him."

The Warlord's voice was very soft. "And why, my little slave, would I do that?"

"He can't hurt you. Let him go. Please."

"Do you dare defy my command?"

"Master… I…"

Suddenly the Warlord coughed. He brought a hand to his mouth, and red blood slipped through the bone-crusted fingers. He coughed again and the ground shook. The forest of bones vibrated, swayed as if in a divine wind. Cracks slithered up the white pillars, breaking. Bones fell off the rocky cliff in pieces, a grating screeching noise. The Warlord stumbled back, both hands clawing at his own throat.

The bones holding Sasuke snapped in half.

Naruto saw his chance. He rushed forward and grabbed Sasuke, tugging him to his feet. Sasuke tried to stagger toward the Warlord but Naruto dragged him back. "No, we can't, run, _run_!" he shouted, and then leaped through an opening in the cage of crumbling bones.

They ran.

Uchiha Itachi roared from behind. He was screaming something. Naruto did not know what was happening, he could not hear his master's words. The sound of the bones was too loud. They were growing again, tearing upwards from the rocks, rows of enormous pointed teeth.

"We've got to fight!" Sasuke was shouting.

"I can't fight my master!"

"Damnit, Naruto!"

"You'll die. Save your life, please! I beg you."

Bones erupted in front of them, all around them. Like the fangs of a wild animal, the jaws snapping shut as they tried to climb out of the mouth. Naruto skidded to a stop just before a dozen white lances burst from a stone wall ahead. The bones towered into the cinder-red sky, growing, curling inwards until they were stitched all together, like a ghostly carcass, like the skeleton of the castle that had once been there. Naruto scrambled for his life, dodging sharp fanged bones in every direction. In the chaos he could not see anything, only rain and wind and shining white bone.

"Sasuke!" he screamed.

"I'm here."

Then Naruto knew where they were.

Sasuke was standing on the ruins of a great stone dais, the black marble so splintered that a hundred kinds of grass grew from the cracks. Once the Uchiha Shoguns had ruled the city of Sawara from this place, plotting life and death from the iron height of the Shogun Throne. But now the Shogun Throne was gone, and all of Sawara was in flames. Even across the length of Fire Fan Bay he could see it, a torch of raging orange smoke. It was eerily beautiful, somehow. Orange light threw white bones in black shadows. Under the dais, pillars of bone arched overhead like huge skeletal ribs, like dead hollow things.

They were back in the throne room of Uchiha Castle.

"We've got to fight!" Sasuke said again.

"You're hurt," Naruto told him.

Sasuke could barely stand. His legs buckled, and Naruto had to catch him by the waist. There were bloody holes in the palms of Sasuke's hands, wide enough that Naruto could put his tongue through.

"I don't care. He's hurt too." Sasuke hugged Naruto tightly. "The Warlord was coughing blood, you saw it as well as me. I must've injured him on the inside, even if he pretended I didn't. We can kill him. Naruto, please, we can do this!"

"I can't."

"If we don't fight him, he'll kill us both. Naruto, you've got to choose. It's either me or him!"

"I can't."

"You have to!"

"I can't! Sasuke—agh—" Naruto's eyes were burning, they were ablaze with throbbing blood. It was as if they had turned into daggers, stabbing him from inside.

Sasuke's mouth widened. "Your eyes—"

" _Traitors_ ," a voice boomed.

Uchiha Itachi walked toward them from the beach. White bones curved around him like bladed armor. They jutted out from his body, sharp jagged spikes, from everywhere except his face.

He was hideous. He was a monster.

He was Naruto's master.

"My perfect weapon," Itachi said. "So you are not so perfect after all."

Naruto bowed his head. "Master. I'm sorry."

"At every turn, fate has conspired against me. Again and again I have overcome all odds." Uchiha Itachi held the Kusanagi straight before his chest. "And what are you, Naruto, but one more betrayal?"

"You made him a slave!" Sasuke shouted. "You tortured him. He doesn't owe anything to you. He's just your tool, you don't love him!"

"Love is a weakness. Didn't I tell you, little fox?" The Warlord swung the Kusanagi in a slashing arc. "Hate makes you strong."

The two boys were still locked in embrace. Sasuke dodged in one direction, Naruto in the other. The Kusanagi came down between them, smashing the marble dais into rubble.

Sasuke's hands were glowing with blue chakra. "Raiton!" he shouted. A lightning bolt struck out at Itachi, hitting him in the chest. Sasuke did not stop. His fingers moved in a blur, hurling more jutsu. Fireballs, arrows of wind, explosions of churning stones. Uchiha Itachi stalked forward, hacking at Sasuke with the Kusanagi.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted. "Master! Stop, please."

Chakra blades crackled from the center of Sasuke's fists. He met Itachi blow for blow, parrying all his attacks. Bones grew from Itachi's left hand, gouging at Sasuke's exposed flank. Bones were growing from the mud too. They rose from the stones of the ruined throne room, twisting everywhere. Naruto tried to block one with his borrowed katana, but the blade broke in half. He would've been impaled, if he had not summoned fire from the sword stump, just in time. More bones came for him.

"Naruto, he's trying to kill you!" Sasuke said. "You've got to fight back!"

"I saved you," said the Warlord. "I brought you up. I made you what you are. And how do you repay me for all I have done?"

"Master—"

"I foresaw your betrayal. Yes, it could not be otherwise. For I war against destiny itself, and the treachery of fate knows no bounds. Fate sent you to me, Naruto. It fired you like an arrow into my heart. So be it! I have ripped the arrow out, and I still stand. I am the Emperor of Birthright, and I stand alone!"

The Warlord coughed.

Blood spilled from his mouth, dribbling in dark rivulets down his white chin. Forests of bones shook in the storm, in the cold pouring rain.

"Die!" Sasuke shouted, slashing at the Warlord's front. A fissure ran up Itachi's chest, the sound of a tree trunk snapping in two. As Itachi weakened, so his bones weakened as well. Vulnerable to attack. Sasuke struck with blades of lightning, and the Kusanagi broke off from Itachi's hand. It clattered against the black dais, and the bones that were wrapped around the metal core crumbled like chalk.

"You shall kneel before me!" the Warlord yelled. New bones exploded from his chest, from his arms, strong and hard. "I stand alone!" His smooth pale face was warped in fury. "I am the master of fate!"

"Naruto, damnit! It's either me or him." Sasuke dove at the Warlord. "You've got to choose, Naruto!"

"I can't!" The two Uchiha clashed beneath the storm. Naruto could only watch, paralyzed by indecision. The pain in his eyes flared up again. The world was spinning before him, not colors or shapes now, but something more, something radiant with golden light. He tried to look closer, and the light was as scalding hot as the sun. Naruto screamed in agony.

"Naruto!" Sasuke called, turning his head.

The Warlord hit Sasuke with a mace of bone. The heavy hammer slammed into Sasuke's stomach and smashed him up against one of the collapsed stone walls.

"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled. He tried to run toward the fallen boy, but the immense pressure in his eyes made him reel. He sunk to his knees, and suddenly his master was standing there in front of him. Naruto's shifting vision made the Warlord look like a golden effigy, made the Warlord's green eyes dance with kaleidoscope sparks.

"Naruto," said his master. "My beautiful boy. Any last words?"

_I am about to die_. Naruto's entire life flashed before him, fifteen years of existence on this demented earth. He wanted to say so much, so many fine things, but when he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was the truth.

"I don't hate you," he whispered. "I love you, Master Itachi. I always loved you."

"That makes one of us." And then the Warlord thrust his sword of bone towards Naruto's heart.

"No!" a voice cried.

Sasuke leaped between Naruto and Itachi.

He took the sword in Naruto's place.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shrieked.

A bloody bone protruded out of Sasuke's chest. It had been driven right through the heart. Real, he was _real_ , not a bunshin. Steaming blood poured out of the hole and onto Naruto's face. "Sasuke!"

"The Kitsune is no more," declared the Warlord. "I am the last Uchiha."

Naruto raised his trembling hands to touch Sasuke's chest, his fingers staining red, and then to cradle Sasuke's face. The ninja dangled on the sword of bone, head bowed. "Sasuke!" he choked. "Sasuke, _why_?"

Ashen rain flowed down Sasuke's cheeks. He smiled weakly.

"Because… I choose you…"

Naruto went blind.

Something broke inside him. Pain seared from his eyeballs, washed in a tidal flood over the rest of his body. He tried to scream but it hurt too much. Naruto was drowning in a sea of darkness. He clawed at his face, as if to tear the darkness away like a veil. Only the veil grew more suffocating, pressing into him from all sides, jabbing his heart and his mind and at his eyes. Naruto's head seemed to shatter, exploded into a thousand mirror shards, reforming, exploding again. His entire life seemed to coalesce into this one moment, this single point. All his pain, all his grief and regret. It passed away from him into nothing and from that black nothingness, finally, at long last, his birthright was unleashed.

And then Naruto saw.

He saw everything.

He saw the world. It was as if he had never seen it before, until this moment. So clear, so incredibly sharp. He could see the wind as it moved in the air, he could see each drop of rain as it fell from the sky. He could see Sasuke, flung away a dozen feet to splay by the marble dais, so very cold, so very gray, and he could see his master.

Uchiha Itachi was raking his fingers into his ribs, coughing.

Naruto lifted his head, and then they saw face to face.

He beheld his own reflection—

The irises of Naruto's eyes burned crimson red.

"Impossible!" the Warlord gasped, blood frothing from his lips. "You… a bloodline child…"

Naruto knew the truth of it. He felt it in his eyes, in the black shape that formed itself within the red pupils, a shape like a birthmark, three overlapping twisted crosses in a wheel. Unfathomable power radiated from their piercing depths. How could he describe it? It was more than sight, more than just the surface of things. He could see the truth of what lay underneath. Even something so simple as a blade of grass contained multitudes of possibility. Energy, motion, chakra. He could see them all.

He could see souls.

"Master," Naruto said. "You're dying."

"I am Uchiha Itachi!" his master cried.

But even as he said it the life was leaking out of him. Cold stiff chakra crawled through the Warlord's body, the color of urine, so slow, too slow. When it reached his lungs the chakra curled up like so many dying insects. Like looking beneath a rotten log, seeing the truth that had lay hidden for so long. _So many truths, so many secrets._ The Warlord's lungs had not been damaged by any of Sasuke's attacks.

No. They had shriveled away long ago, two broken sacs full of diseased holes.

"The wasting sickness," Naruto said. "How many years?"

"I am strong!" his master tried to shout, but every breath was a struggle, a wheezing cough. "I am the Emperor of all the world." Bones sprung from the man's limbs, whirled towards Naruto with deadly intent. Just a few seconds ago they would have been a blur, too fast to see, yet now they seemed to move no faster than a snail. Naruto could predict their exact movements.

"I shall defeat the Whore of Fate!"

Naruto did not think. He only did, and by sheer instinct raised the stump of his sword before the attacking bones. Then his red eyes pulsed, and black fire shot out of the stump and devoured everything in its path. Invincible Shikkasaimyaku bones burned in the black flames like pieces of paper, evaporating into smoke.

"No one can stand before me!" the man screamed.

"Why, master?" Naruto asked. "Why did you fight, if you were dying? You used up too much chakra, there is none left to sustain your life."

The Warlord of Blood began to laugh.

He could not breathe, yet still he laughed, gold scarlet blood spewing from inside his lungs. "Do you think you know me, Naruto?" Around him columns of bones spiraled skyward, as far as the edge of the Endless Sea, as far as the distant burning horizon. They were no longer white, not in Naruto's eyes, but the color of the sun, infused with the Warlord's glowing chakra. "Little slave, do you dare to pity me?"

Bones struck at Naruto, attacking from every angle. It was too much to block with a single sword, but Naruto acted on instinct once more. A shield of red chakra erupted around his body, and all the Warlord's bones together could not pierce it. They clattered against the chakra armor uselessly, and then the black flames in Naruto's hand seared them all away into smoke. The flames shone in the night with unholy darkness, the chakra armor rose and stretched in the storm like a living being, reaching with swirling ruby arms toward a lightning-streaked sky. Naruto could feel his own burning power, too much for any man.

Even for his master. The Warlord coughed, laughing, peals of cracking noise. Bones trembled and crumbled into pieces, their gold color fading as the Warlord faded, shards of bone falling to the ground like scattered eggshells. Fractures appeared across his body, splitting open the white skeletal skin. Yet the man's voice only became stronger.

"I shall overcome you all." His laughter rang out in the beating rain like a funeral drum, again and again, louder and louder, a crescendo of deafening rage. With each ringing thud it felt as if the world would snap. "I am the last Uchiha! I am the before and the hereafter. And none— _none_ —"

The man was silent.

The last yellow threads of chakra gathered in his chest, in his heart. Naruto could see it. Naruto could see the little orb of golden light, everything that his master had ever been, his soul. And then the light faded, leaving behind only a lifeless object.

Naruto stared into the face of the man born thirty years ago in the dungeons of Uchiha Castle, as a slaveboy without a bloodname. How far he had come since then, betraying and backstabbing, scheming and slaughtering, clutching and clawing, reaching with desperate greedy hands towards the chalice of power, drinking great gulps yet always thirstier than he had started, until at last he had drunk so much that even the seat of heaven itself could not have quenched his parched and gasping throat. In the end, he had been undone by the same insatiable thirst that had carried him to such distance and exalted shores. And yet—how he had dreamed, and acted his dream with such cruel, frozen eyes!

It was just fate.

"Master Itachi," Naruto whispered. "Let your will be done."

And then in one motion the slaveboy had thrust his sword into the man's heart, and twisted.

The black flames consumed the remains of Uchiha Itachi in an flash. White bones disintegrated into gray ash. Demonic fire snaked in a great pyre, black tongues that licked up Itachi's body and jumped from bone to bone, burning the entire skeletal carcass that hung across the ruins of Uchiha Castle. Naruto poured as much of his chakra into the pyre as he could. He poured it all out until his chakra armor was gone, his black fire was gone. He did not stop until only his crimson eyes were left.

Then Naruto went to find Sasuke.

Sasuke was lying on the broken dais, flecks of black marble littered around him. Beneath the storming sky, the boy's face was as pale and delicate as frost. One hand was pressed up to his chest, staunching the gaping wound. A faint sigh escaped him, bringing a froth of golden blood to his lips. "Naruto," he whispered in a soft voice. "Naruto…is…"

"The Warlord is dead."

"That's good." He stretched out his hand to grab Naruto's robe. Blood spurted from the hole in his chest where the hand had been. Chakra smoked from the wound, shining light that grew dimmer with each passing instant.

"Sasuke," Naruto said. "Sasuke, what are you doing?"

"Dying," he whispered back.

"No," Naruto said, "no, you must live."

"You can't tell me what to do." Sasuke shivered. "I'll die if… if it pleases me…"

"It was my fault! All my fault."

"No." Sasuke pulled Naruto close with a final, desperate strength. "Naruto… listen…"

The boy's voice was an echo, so faint that Naruto thought he was dreaming it. Naruto leaned next to Sasuke's mouth, and the boy spoke his last wish into Naruto's ear.

"Do you promise?" Sasuke whispered.

"I promise."

Sasuke smiled. "Don't leave me… Naruto…"

And then the light went out of his green, green eyes, just as it had faded from the Warlord's.

Uchiha Sasuke died in the arms of the boy he loved.


	20. The Promise

The storm ended as Naruto cradled Sasuke's corpse.

First the rain stopped. It ceased in a single moment, as if the clouds above had been emptied of any water that remained. Then the wind died down, and the black clouds began to break apart. They floated away, dissolving into dazzling immensity. The sky was full of stars. Gleaming pinpricks stared down upon the world like innumerable tiny eyes. Naruto raised his face to the clear cold night, and saw the moon. It was perfectly round, larger than he had ever seen it. His bloodline power made the moon seem like a mirror, as if he stared into that white surface long enough, he would see the reflection of his own eyes back at him. All in Uchiha Castle was silent, except for the soft patter of waves lapping at the shore below.

The day came slowly.

A gray haze rose from the east, behind the castle ruins, washing out the stars inch by inch. The first light before daybreak, casting the world in formless shadows. Naruto knelt in the damp earth, Sasuke's body stiff and icy in his arms. From the black marble dais, Naruto could see over the walls of the throne room to the rest of the battlefield. Heaps of corpses stretched from horizon to horizon, so jumbled together that even he could not tell which had been Blood soldiers, and which had been the Kiyome invaders from across the sea. Fire Fan Bay was calm, a sheet of overcast glass. The smoldering remnants of Sawara loomed over the water, wisps of smoke painted black against the gloomy sky.

Gray became blue, and then yellow, soft red. The sun was just visible through the holes in the castle walls, a sliver of brilliant light. Dawn streaked across the sky. The day was cloudless. Only the moon was left, and the ravens. The ravens wheeled above the waves of Fire Fan Bay, a swarm of dark wings. They flew past the pale moon and, squawking, dove down upon Uchiha Castle to feast upon the bodies of the dead. Naruto could count them all. There were six ravens to every corpse, one for each appendage, tearing at human flesh with their sharp beaks. A stench of meat reeked through the air, mixing with the ash, the scent of fresh-fallen rain. Thick clotted blood ran down into the wet spring grass.

There had been a poem about that, Naruto thought. What was it, how did it go?

_Countries may fall,  
__But their rivers and mountains remain.  
__When spring comes to the ruined castle,  
__The grass is green again_.

When Naruto looked up, Senju Hagoromo was walking toward him along the beach.

The Sage of Six Paths was more radiant than the sun.

It was like looking into the very heart of a golden flame. Naruto blinked, and could not hold his gaze for long. _Chakra_ , he knew. This man had more of it than he could ever have imagined. The chakra oozed from the pores on his skin and flowed down his limbs like a blinding fog, it billowed behind him like the gilded folds of an imperial robe. When the man strode forward, shimmering light lingered upon the place where he had stood. Naruto could see the trail of golden footsteps, stretching back from the beach, across the water itself and then from the mouth of Fire Fan Bay.

Had Hagoromo walked all the way across the sea to Sawara? What kind of power must he have had, to do that?

There were others with the Sage, a thronging retinue. Naruto saw them very clearly. Sougon Sawar was there, sharp slitted eyes as black as the skin of his smirking face. Misain Rin was there, peacock feathers in her hair like a rainbow halo, smeared lipstick glistening red in the dawn. More he did not recognize, men and women in strange clothing, not robes but pants and shirts, not scale armor but suits of silver plate. Yet all of them wore the white headband of the Sage of Six Paths.

And when Senju Hagoromo entered the throne room of Uchiha Castle, he entered alone. The others stopped by the broken gates. Only a boy tried to follow, perhaps a few years younger than Naruto, but Hagoromo held up his hand, and the boy backed away with a frown. The boy was very powerful—Naruto could see it. Glowing chakra seemed to fill his body almost to bursting, and wherever he stepped, life grew around him from the earth, leaves and flowers and small wooden stalks. _Hagoromo's son, Senju Asura, born from the love of a princess across the sea_. Sasuke had told him there was a son, but he had not said how different he was. Asura looked nothing like his father. Plain dark hair, beady dark eyes, stocky and thick, the ugly face of a dog.

No, Naruto thought.

_His father looks like me._

The man who walked toward him was a bronzed giant. His robes were of the purest white cotton, and in his right hand he carried a long prayer staff, gold rings clinking softly as he lifted it. Six rings, like the six red magatama beads he wore around his neck on a chain of white silk. The man's braided hair was lustrous yellow, his face pale and smooth. He stepped onto the dais, towering over the kneeling Naruto like a burning colossus.

Thirteen years ago, Senju Hagoromo's eyes had been gouged out in this very room. Now he had returned, and his eyes were a fathomless purple, concentric ripples that poured away into the blinding golden light at their center.

The Rinnegan.

The eyes of a god.

"My master is dead," Naruto told him. "Sasuke is dead."

The man called the Sage of Six Paths spoke, and his voice echoed across the ruins of Uchiha Castle.

"Yes. I returned from across the sea to bring Kindness At All Cost. Yet the wake of my coming has left only death. Uchiha Sasuke was like a son to me. As for the Warlord of Blood, the man who named himself Uchiha Itachi… no matter his crimes, he shall always be my precious student. May their tormented souls rest in peace." The Sage of Six Paths stared down at Naruto. "And you, my child. You have been born again."

"My eyes," Naruto said. "This power."

"It is my power in you. My blood. Yet you have awakened it, you have made it yours. A sight beyond sight, a power to see through the illusion of the world to the hidden truth. Born in the pain of infinite feeling, cursed until the end of time by the wheel of fate itself. The Mirror Wheel Eye of the people of Indra. The _Sharingan_. This is your inheritance and your legacy, Naruto without a bloodname. This is your birthright."

"I understand." Naruto rose to his feet, gripping Sasuke's body in his arms. "Just one last thing. A name without a bloodname is a slave name… but I am a slave no longer. And I have found a bloodname to call my own. It was passed on to me by Uchiha Sasuke, the last of his clan, to continue it… I am Uchiha Naruto."

"Uchiha Naruto." The Sage of Six Paths stared at him with swirling purple eyes. "I will remember. Go then, my child. Go, and be free."

Naruto carried Sasuke's corpse from the silent battlefield.

The sky was a startling blue, marred only by the smoke. Dawn light filtered in slats from the horizon. The landscape was bleak and desolate. Naruto held Sasuke close against his chest, trudging through the spoils of war. The spoils were everywhere, dead bodies and ravens and pieces of broken bone and trampled muddy grass. In the distance, beyond the Haunted City, the capital of the Blood Country was no more. Sawara was a city of paper and wood, and the fire in the night had razed it all. The imperial palace was a husk of blackened bricks. Next to it Shinjukame Temple toppled over sideways, like a dead snake. Everything else had been completely leveled. The high city, the low city, Madara Square and Sawara Bridge and the Street of Beggars. Even the Outcast Districts, even the Godswood and the Floating World almshouse. They were all gone.

Only the Haven River was left. Bright gleaming water gushed into Fire Fan Bay, just as it always had. The river seemed to be cleansing itself. A steady current pushed southward, carrying whatever wreckage remained in the bay out to the Endless Sea. In a few days there would be no way to tell that a battle had ever been waged there. _The same shall happen to the city_ , Naruto thought. Sawara had been razed by fire before. Yet it had always been rebuilt, in time, even more glorious than it was. _The world changes slowly, if it ever does._

No—

What had changed were themselves.

Humans beings had changed. The Sage had not just brought religion to the shores of the Blood Country; he had brought magic. He had brought bloodlines. _You can use spirit energy to create any kind of energy._ The Sage and his ninja that he had trained, they held a power within their bodies that was nothing short of godlike. They had used that power to destroy slavery. They had used it to conquer in the name of peace. But what came next? What would these ninja do now, how would they remake society in their own image?

Where would it end?

The Age of the Ninja had just begun.

Naruto felt suddenly very tired. He looked down at Sasuke, resting gently against his chest. Sasuke's face was turned upward, toward the sky; with his eyes closed the other boy almost looked like he was asleep. He was so pale, white skin and white hair. Only the slaveseal on his forehead had any color. The twisted black cross stared at Naruto accusingly.

_It was all my fault_. Sasuke had sacrificed himself to save Naruto's life. Naruto had not wanted it to happen like that. He would have given everything to take it back, but he did not have the power. His eyes had the power to engulf the world in flames, but they could not resurrect the dead. The power to destroy, but not to heal. Even when that was all he wished for.

In another life he would have laughed at the irony. He would have stamped his feet and raised his fists to the heavens and cursed fate. What did it mean, this existence? Why had he deserved to suffer so much? What had he done to anger the gods, that they would torment him so, and who gave them the right?

But life was not so simple. Naruto felt the truth of it come down upon him like a great weight. It was as if he were seeing his own life anew, as if he were waking from a dream of mist. Life was a story, he thought. It was a narrative that people told themselves. And it was the moments, the memories, which made up that story, which gave that story meaning. There were so many memories. The stinging light as strong arms picked him up out of a pile of corpses. Hunting foxes in the Wood Country. Waking up in the dungeons after disobeying his master. Training with a sword in the gardens of Birthright Keep. The thrill of battle, the heat of the blood on his face as he killed an enemy samurai for the first time.

And two memories most of all.

The first one was always the same. It was the first time they had sex, that night under the full moon, in the soft dewy grass in the clearing in the woods. Sasuke had climbed up a tree, excited by the beauty of the night, by the moon. He had tried to fly and Naruto had caught him in his arms. Afterwards they had laid together, feeling the beating of each other's hearts. Naruto clutched at Sasuke with a desperate strength. "I love you," he whispered. That moment, that pure, innocent moment, was the happiest memory that Naruto ever had. It was the moment that made his life worth living.

And then the other memory, the worst one. It had happened only hours before, but Naruto knew it would haunt his dreams every night until he died. The fight with Itachi, his master driving a sword of deadly bone toward his chest. Sasuke jumping in from nowhere, taking the fatal blow. Naruto screaming. And then cradling Sasuke's body in his arms, the blood gushing out of his lover's heart, the light going out of his fading eyes…

And the words. The final words, that he would never forget.

" _Naruto… listen… my bloodname… the Uchiha clan. I'm the last… but I want… a new beginning… do ya promise?"_

" _I promise."_

" _Don't leave me… Naruto…"_

But in the end it had not been Naruto who left.

He never would.

He saw that, now. Naruto saw himself as he was truly was. What had Sasuke called him? A good little slave. _That scar on ya' forehead ain't a brand of evil, for you… it's a brand of kindness._ Sasuke had never understood that. He had never grasped the reason why Naruto would be loyal to his master.

Master Itachi had never understood it, either. Not truly. _Do you love me?_ he had asked, not expecting any other answer than no. _Slaves should not love their masters_. But Naruto was not like other slaves, he was not like the boy his master had once been. So who was he? Was he just a tool, a perfect weapon? Perhaps it had seemed for a fantastical moment that he could be something more. A person, a free person, with his own choices, his own dreams. The dream of making a new life for himself, with—with the boy he loved…

But that moment had passed away long ago. There was only the dream of his master which remained.

Both of his masters.

He was not a slave any longer. There was no one to order him around. And yet he could not run from his past. He was Naruto. His master had given him that name; it was who he was, it defined his existence. He could no more abandon it than he could his own life.

But Sasuke had given him another name, as well. Another dream. Both of them were his now.

They were both his birthright.

_I will, Sasuke_. _I'll make a new beginning for the Uchiha clan, in your name. And in the name of Master Itachi. I shall make the world kneel before us._

That was the promise.

A faint sound shook Naruto from his reverie. He looked up; a crowd of Kiyome soldiers was ahead of him, by the eastern bank of the Haven River. They were singing. At first Naruto could not quite make it out, but then a breeze picked up from the north, carrying the soldiers' voices toward him. The rhythm of the chant was much like the ancient Zen hymn, the one about fleeting bliss, but the words were different:

_There is not even a moment of calmness_  
_In the heart of this passing life_  
_The wind is already blowing_  
_Through the hollow of our bones._  
_Oh, God, we yearn for Kindness_ _—  
_ _Kindness at all cost._

It was the funeral prayer of the Sage of Six Paths.

The soldiers were gathered in a circle, their backs turned to him. As he walked closer Naruto saw that they were using shovels to bury their dead in earthen graves. A southern custom, not like the pyres common in the north. But it did not matter. The feeling behind the act was the same, they honored their dead as they wished to be honored. Dawn light gleamed upon rows of carved wooden tombstones.

They stopped when they saw him. Naruto walked straight through their ranks, and the Kiyome soldiers moved aside to let him through, parted as if by an elemental force. They were all looking at his face, at Sasuke's body in his arms. For a time nobody said anything. The wind blew softly over the river, rippling the sunlit water.

At last someone dared to speak. "Kindness at all cost," a solider whispered, a turbaned man with a red tattoo on his face.

And then suddenly it was if everybody had taken up the cry at the same time, all at once, spontaneously, instinctively—as if for one impossible moment all that had happened in their lives, all the pain and the suffering and the joy and everything, everything, had been captured in those four words, in that desperate funeral prayer. The song of their combined voices filled the sky like rolling thunder. Only Naruto walked on in silence, only he stared straight ahead. "Oh, God, we yearn for Kindness at all cost. Kindness at all cost. Kindness at all cost. Kindness at all cost—"

"Kindness… at… all… cost!"

The bloody eyes of the Sharingan burned in the dawn.


End file.
